


Crash and Burn

by red_river



Category: Komatta Toki ni wa Hoshi ni Kike!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If anything's happened to Ayako, I'll never forgive you." In the wake of the car accident, Takara runs away from Kiyomine and finds himself unexpectedly running to Reiichi and Yoshiya, who do their best to piece him back together. Multichap story focused on the friendship between Takara, Reiichi, and Yoshiya, with a side of hurt/comfort and humor.  Slight AU from the end of Volume 13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal.
> 
> With some prompting from a friend, I've decided to take up a multi-chapter project for Komatta Toki set after Volume 13, sort of a "what if" where Takara's father does go back to Africa and he turns to Reiichi and Yoshiya for comfort after Kiyomine's harsh words. Not totally sure how long it will be, but nine or so chapters at least, possibly with additional interludes afterward.
> 
> Note: Mostly a friendship story focused on Takara, Reiichi, and Yoshiya, with some light Kiyomine x Takara and Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.

**Crash and Burn: Chapter One  
**

The city was disconcertingly quiet now. Through the shimmer of snowflakes crusting the taxi window, Yoshiya could see that the worst of the storm had passed, though the roads were still slick, and every now and then he caught a glimpse of emergency lights in the glass façades of skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings, sirens silenced but their lights still screaming. Reiichi's text had been short, somehow breathless— _she's okay_ —just enough to relax Yoshiya's shoulders against the taxi's back seat, to ease the memory of the look Reiichi had shot him as he led Hosaka and Fujishima out of the dorm, eyes wide in his pale face like he was struggling to keep his concern locked inside, like he was checking that it didn't show. Yoshiya always saw it anyway. He wondered if the rest of the Kashiwagis would have arrived at the hospital by now, wished without any real impatience that the driver would speed up. The last thing they needed tonight was another accident; still, there was an uncomfortable tension in his chest, a dull ache that wouldn't ease until he made it back to Reiichi's side again, found out if his expression was still made of glass. Reiichi had never handled hospitals well.

The phone made a soft sound against his ear, and Yoshiya pulled it back far enough to read the icon. Another text. Maybe this one would be about Fujishima. He'd have to get off the call before he could find out.

"…I'm so sorry to hear that happened. Please tell Ayako I'm glad she's all right."

Yoshiya raised two fingers to rub the bridge of his nose, fighting to hear the man's startled, apologetic voice through the blare of announcements, calls for passengers and flights buzzing over airport speakers. He didn't know Fujishima's father very well, but he was the one with twenty minutes in a taxi and the connections to get Mr. Fujishima pulled from his plane to answer a phone call even though the aircraft's doors had already closed. He heard the man shift, an impatience in the movement that Yoshiya found absently irritating.

"There was some concern that you were in the car," he said, keeping his voice mild. "Your son was under the impression Ayako was giving you a ride to the airport."

As clearly as if he were still standing in the dorm's entrance hall, he saw again the blood drain from Fujishima's face, the slow dawn of panic as Reiichi stepped out of the office and explained that Ayako had been in an accident and was taken to the hospital, condition unknown. _What about my dad? My dad was in the car with her_ , Fujishima had asked, choking out the words like there was something caught in his throat—and then the unsettling _bang_ as Hosaka grabbed Fujishima's collar and smashed him back into the wall, rage making his eyes even darker than usual. _If anything's happened to Ayako, I'll never forgive you_. Even after Reiichi led them out and the taxi pulled away, Yoshiya heard those words in his head for a long time.

There was a piece of paper in his lap—something that had fallen out of Fujishima's pocket in the fray, a tiny white square like Fujishima had folded it over and over until it was as small as possible. Yoshiya flicked the creased edge as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Oh, that…well, she did offer, but once we got into the city the traffic was so bad I decided I'd better take a train. Ayako let me out at the station. She must have been on her way back when the accident happened." A tiny pause, like the man had hesitated over his words. "I hope Takara wasn't too worried."

"I'm sure he was," Yoshiya said, and felt no particular remorse for the awkward silence from the other side.

He didn't know Fujishima's father that well. He had appreciated the man's hospitality at New Year's, when he'd given Reiichi a place to run. He had appreciated his talent for photography when he displayed the snapshots from his last trip, his obvious passion when he talked about the assignment he was hoping for—eighteen months embedded with a certain tribe in the heart of the continent. But even as he could appreciate the artistry of his craft, the unexpected construction and the flawless eye for color, Yoshiya couldn't stop himself from wondering how someone could think about being away from his only child for that length of time, how he could effuse about the trip as if he weren't leaving anything behind. And he couldn't stop himself, now, from unfolding the piece of paper again, staring down at the official government forms for transfer of guardianship, with Fujishima Takara's name on the line asking for _Identity of Minor_ , and _Assignment to Africa_ as the reason for surrendering his rights. Mr. Fujishima hadn't written anything in the space denoting _New Guardian_ , but he had signed his name at the bottom, and as a consequence the form seemed achingly empty—not so much a handoff as a castoff, a man freeing himself of his responsibility to his son without caring whose responsibility he became. Yoshiya wondered if it had felt the same to Fujishima, if that was why he'd folded it so tightly, small enough that he wouldn't have to feel it in his pocket.

There was the crackle of a prerecorded message over the speakers, the hush of someone speaking low on the other side of the phone. Fujishima Kou cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm really sorry, but we just got the okay to taxi…they're getting ready to close the doors again. I have to go. Please tell Takara I'll call him once I land in Ethiopia." Again that hesitation, the impatience more pronounced this time. "Unless there's something else?"

Yoshiya stared down at the change of guardianship form. Then he folded it slowly back up and tucked it into the pocket of his heavy coat, staring out at a white city through the glare of taillights on black glass.

"No," he said. "There's nothing else. Have a safe flight."

* * *

He didn't see Fujishima right away when he reached the hospital. He found Hosaka, and Ayako, and the rest of the Kashiwagi clan gathered in the lobby, examining one by one the small bandages on Ayako's face and arms. Reiichi broke from the circle to meet him at the door, explaining in a low voice that they were all going out to dinner. Yoshiya thought he still seemed shaken, those slender fingers wrapped a little too tightly around his wrist to be an unconscious hold.

"You're going home tonight, aren't you—for the last few days of break?" Reiichi asked, as Masaya summoned him back into the fold. "I might drop by later, after dinner."

Yoshiya had a feeling that dinner—a long drive in the lingering snow, an hour listening to Masaya and his father talk business over heavy wine and heavier food while Reiichi's eyes drifted over and over to the bandages on Ayako's face, the flash of ambulances going by outside the window—was not what Reiichi needed right now. He was tempted to turn his hand over, take Reiichi's wrist in turn and drag him away before he had any more time to dwell on this. But that wasn't how things worked with the Kashiwagis. He squeezed Reiichi's hand in passing as he slid out of his companion's grip.

"Of course. You're welcome anytime."

"Thanks." He took a step back toward the knot of family behind him before adding, "Oh—could you look around for Fujishima? We invited him to come along, but he said he was going to take the bus or something…"

"I'll get him a taxi," Yoshiya broke in. Reiichi smiled.

"I knew you would. See you later." He turned and jogged back to the cluster of black-haired family members heading for the door, and Yoshiya watched him go, wondering how many hours the Kashiwagis would exact before Reiichi could get away. Then he shook it off and addressed himself to the exhausted night nurse, who directed him to the bus stop at the back of the building.

But Fujishima wasn't at the bus stop. Nor was he at the taxi stand outside the lobby, the line of vehicles waiting for hire painted a jarring red and white by the staccato lights of an ambulance rolling in. He wasn't in the men's room off the lobby. The night nurse hadn't noticed him slipping down the corridor into the depths of the hospital—and why would he? Yoshiya dialed his number once, twice, felt his stomach twist into a tighter knot with every unanswered ring. He spent a fraction of a second theorizing that Fujishima had gotten onto a bus in the mere minutes between slipping away from Reiichi and his own arrival by taxi, but the transit report on his phone told him all buses had stopped running an hour ago.

By the time he circled back to the bus stop, his hands braced on his knees as he bent under the weight of the snow getting thicker all the time, he was out of breath and half out of his mind, baffled at how Fujishima had just disappeared, how he and Reiichi and Hosaka had let him slip through their fingers like this. Yoshiya forced himself straight, pushed his fogged glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a softly shaking hand. It wasn't a good night to lose track of someone. Already it felt like they were on the losing end of something, a chance of balance that couldn't tip their way one more time.

The roads were deserted, the city so quiet Yoshiya could hear the drums pounding in his ears. Out of desperation, he put his phone to his ear again and listened to the long silence before the ring, his imperfect eyes squinting down the horizon of every street through the haze of the storm. Then out of the darkness came a sound that broke the ice in his stomach—the distant chime of a ringtone he recognized, the opening theme to an anime that Fujishima had raved about two weeks ago, before the break, every emphatic gesture making Reiichi laugh harder into his coffee cup. Yoshiya turned on his heel, stared down the vacant sidewalk just in time to see a figure in a familiar salmon-colored coat slipping out of the circle of illumination beneath a streetlamp, vanishing into the darkness at the same moment the phone stopped ringing. Yoshiya shoved it into his pocket and started to run.

"Fujishima!" he called, the echo of his voice resounding in the silent streets. But either Fujishima didn't hear him, or, like the phone, he simply chose not to answer.

Yoshiya wasn't dressed for this. His heavy brown coat flapped open, driving the nails of the icy wind through the thin weave of his sweater; his black oxfords slipped on a patch of ice and he almost impaled himself on the finial of a wrought-iron fence, scraping one palm raw when he caught himself against the concrete instead. The cold made it hard to breathe, harder to think about anything except the snowflakes building up on his glasses, the figure that just kept walking slowly, deliberately away into the dark. By the time he caught up, risking another slip to jump over the mountain of dirty snow the plows had left crusting in the gutter, he had lost his typical composure; he seized Fujishima by the shoulder, dragged him up out of the road with of one hand and then spun the shorter boy to face him, fingers clenched into the rough fabric of his coat. Fujishima looked somewhere between shocked and angry, his stubborn eyes already narrowed as if preparing for a fight.

"What are you doing?" Yoshiya demanded, the words a little louder than he'd intended, breathless with the run and the irritation coiling in his chest. He could feel the worry that had sunk like lead into his stomach coming to a slow boil, the temper he usually had well in check rising as he searched his underclassman's recalcitrant face.

Fujishima jerked against his hold. "What—nothing. I'm just walking…"

"Where?" Yoshiya interrupted, shaking him a little before he could stop himself. "Where are you going? Were you planning to walk all the way back to the dorm? To your house?" He could hear the edge in his own voice, a tone only Reiichi had ever pushed him to before, when he engaged in behavior so stupid that Yoshiya had to yell at him even through the heart in his throat—the way it was in his throat now, making it even harder to suck the frigid air into his lungs. He wiped the cuff of his sleeve over his lenses, searched through smudged glass for something, anything he could understand in Fujishima's face. "What were you thinking?" he challenged.

Fujishima shifted his weight, shrugging into his coat like he could shrug Yoshiya's hands off at the same time. "The bus isn't running," he mumbled under his breath.

Yoshiya shook his head. "No. You are far too smart to think that's acceptable, and I won't take that from you, Fujishima."

The words were so sharp he felt Fujishima flinch, and Yoshiya sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment to search for composure. Maybe it was just the fear that had his emotions in disarray, the horrible uncertainty he'd felt at the hospital, staring down every black street in turn. Maybe it was the long run and the cold air shriveling in his chest. Or maybe it was just the thought that had hit him while he was running, so hard it almost stopped him mid-stride—the memory of the empty guardianship form tucked into his pocket, the question of exactly whose problem it was if Fujishima walked into the night and disappeared without a trace. Could it be that, at this moment, Fujishima was no one's problem, no one's responsibility? Everything about that thought was terrifying. Yoshiya opened his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing his voice back to its normal pitch as he squeezed Fujishima's shoulders, begged something in that obstinate expression to change.

"Fujishima, you can't do things like this. You returned to the dorms today, which means Reiichi needs to know where you are. I need to know where you are. I had no idea what had happened to you. And there is no excuse for not answering your cell phone." He thought he saw something in Fujishima's eyes, a flicker of shame or misery, but he blinked it away too fast to be sure. Yoshiya ran a hand through his hair. "There were ten people you knew at the hospital. You should have waited with the group, or asked Reiichi to put you in a taxi, or just agreed to go to dinner with Reiichi and Hosaka and—"

The name had been a mistake. Yoshiya realized that as soon as it left his tongue. Fujishima jerked away from him as if he'd been burned and Yoshiya let go, but only because he could see now that whatever was about to happen, Fujishima wasn't going to run—his shoulders were hunched up to his ears and his legs trembled in his thin jeans, his arms wrapped tight around his stomach as if even the heavy down coat couldn't keep the cold out. He took half a step backward and then jerked to a stop, like the soles of his tennis shoes were frozen into the snow. Fujishima shook his head.

"I didn't want—look, nothing was going to happen, and I'm fine, it's fine…"

Yoshiya reached out again, settled a much softer hand on the collar of the salmon coat. "No, Fujishima," he said. "It isn't fine. Nothing about this is fine."

Fujishima stared at him through the ethereal snow, their eyes locked as the younger boy blinked once, twice, squeezed his eyes shut—then all at once Fujishima's face was crumbling, his body shaking as he ducked his head and sobbed into his hands. Yoshiya felt the first wrenching breath like a hammer to his ribs. He had seen Fujishima cry before, but never like this—his face florid, his whole form quivering as if his bones could barely hold him up against the hollow that had opened in the center of him, a void like the empty line where the name of his guardian was supposed to be. Yoshiya swallowed and felt the prickle of the frigid air at the back of his eyes. Then he took the shorter boy by the sleeves and pulled him in, crushed Fujishima against him so hard that he heard him hiccup against the brown fabric. For a moment two bony elbows dug into his stomach, Fujishima squirming in his coat as if he was trying to get away from warmth, from comfort, as if this was something no one was supposed to see—but in another few breaths he gave up, and Yoshiya felt the smaller form sag against his chest, such a slight weight he barely noticed it. Fujishima shuddered, pressing his forehead against Yoshiya's shoulder.

"Kiyomine…my dad…it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," he repeated, his voice breathless and thick with the tears—but by the third time, Yoshiya had deciphered it, could hear the litany of _I don't matter_ underneath the broken words. He tightened his hold, closed his eyes against the glare of oncoming headlights making a blinding wall of the storm.

"It matters," he whispered, and hoped Fujishima could hear him over the rumble of tires on icy pavement, over the heart he could feel pounding under the boy's skin.

From the beginning, Yoshiya had wondered about the Fujishima and Hosaka "experiment," as Reiichi called it. He had known the Kashiwagi family long enough to worry about the sharp side of Hosaka's tongue, to wonder if there was enough of Hosaka for someone to fix, even someone with Fujishima's unbreakable will. So many times he had wondered, listening to doors bang in the first-year corridor, if this was it, if Fujishima had finally had all that he could take. Only now did he realize how complacent he had been, so used to the whims of the Kashiwagis that it had never occurred to him that maybe Fujishima needed someone to get between him and Hosaka before he left scars instead of bruises. It made him angry at himself, and angrier at Hosaka, who was not young enough anymore to be forgiven for breaking his favorite things. Yoshiya squeezed his arms around Fujishima's back and hoped the younger boy could feel the embrace for what it was meant to be—sympathy and solace and deep remorse, because he had never paid enough attention, never treated Fujishima as if he were his responsibility. That was not a mistake he would make again.

Slowly, Yoshiya pulled back far enough to see his face, tears still streaming from red, watery eyes. "Sorry," Fujishima croaked, glancing up at him and then away like he knew he was a mess, scrubbing at the disheveled bangs stuck to his forehead—but looking at him just made Yoshiya smile, because there was something very genuine about his expression, embarrassed and vulnerable and just a little put out, like a kitten left out in a box in the rain, still crying after it was picked up and tucked inside a warm coat. Somehow he had a feeling it was an image Reiichi would understand. Yoshiya shook his head.

"It's all right. Listen, Fujishima…" He hesitated only a moment before pressing on, the square of paper in his pocket burning like a brand through three layers of fabric. "I'm going home for the last few days of break. I'd like you to come with me." Fujishima jerked his head up, staring at him in surprise. Yoshiya wished he could tell what kind of surprise it was. "Reiichi will be coming by later," he hurried to add, in case he was the problem, not certain, suddenly, how comfortable Fujishima would feel staying with him alone.

Reiichi would never have forgiven him for letting Fujishima go home to an empty, desolate house, not after finding him like this, broken open in the snow—but even if he hadn't had Reiichi's voice in his head, Yoshiya wouldn't have let him go, because there was something tightening in the hollow of his ribs: a yearning to do better by Fujishima from this point on, to be someone who gave something to Fujishima and then didn't take it away. He wasn't old enough to sign that empty line as Fujishima's guardian—but maybe he could fill the void, just for a little while.

Yoshiya wrapped an arm across Fujishima's shoulders and led him back toward the hospital, the brittle ice breaking under every step. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you." Fujishima just shook his head, his face pressed into Yoshiya's sleeve to muffle the gasps as he started to cry again—but he wasn't pulling away.

It was a place to start, Yoshiya thought. Sometimes, that was all you could ask for.

* * *

To be continued...please review if you'd like to see more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two  
**

The snow had finally stopped for good when Reiichi climbed out of the black BMW and stretched over his head, relishing the cold of the fresh air on his face. It was just past midnight—not particularly late, by the benchmark of Kashiwagi gatherings—but it seemed like everyone on Yoshiya's block was long asleep, the purr of the top-flight sedan idling next to him abnormally loud in the stillness. The only house with a lit window was the one at the top of the drive. Reiichi smiled and shrugged down into his greatcoat, imagining Yoshiya sitting up in the living room with whoever he was reading now, Cervantes or Stanislaw, and that telltale little crease between his eyebrows, waiting for him. It would be nice to get in somewhere warm—not five-star restaurant warm or second glass of wine warm or heated leather seats warm. Yoshiya warm. Maybe Reiichi would curl up next to him and pretend to fall asleep before he could be shuffled off to the guest room.

The black window in the passenger door glided seamlessly down without so much as a whisper, and Reiichi leaned into the car, bracing his chin on one hand as he offered the driver a smile. "Thanks for the ride, Masaya. Always a pleasure to get your perspective on the blue-chip upswing."

"And yours on the integrity of trade markets in Southeast Asia," Masaya replied smoothly. "Don't forget your leftovers."

Reiichi had been trying very hard to forget his leftovers, had even shifted the foil boat torqued into the shape of a swan to the backseat after _accidentally_ bumping it off the center console during a rousing discussion of the investment implications of ASEAN's comprehensive tariff reform. The restaurant had been Italian—it was always Italian when Masaya was along—and though Reiichi had long mastered the logic of opulent menus (the more upscale the dish, the smaller the portion), in the end he'd had no appetite for the small mountain of prosciutto in white truffle oil that appeared on his plate. Masaya extended the foil swan and Reiichi took it, careful not to wrinkle his nose. He'd been planning to cleverly forget the untouched _piadina con crescenza_ in Masaya's car, but oh well—he could always forget it in Yoshiya's refrigerator instead.

"It sounds like you're going to be busy until school starts," Masaya remarked offhand, clearly a subject on which he had no opinion or even any real interest, but nonetheless Reiichi found his smile widening, imagined that for a minute he could feel the warmth of the lit window glowing against his back. Masaya pushed his glasses farther up his nose. "I suppose it may be a while before we see you again."

"Oh, I'm sure it won't be all that long," Reiichi replied. There seemed to be no shortage of Kashiwagi get-togethers—especially in the winter months, when arthritic old knees made it harder for Grandfather to amuse himself by jet-setting around the globe. Reiichi stood back with a wave of the foil swan. "Drive safely, Masaya," he couldn't help throwing out just before the window slid closed. He listened to the churn of the engine as Masaya shifted into drive, watched for a moment as the glaring red taillights retreated down the dark street. Then he turned and made his way up the icy walk to the front door, careful not to slip in the Santonis that weren't entirely weather approved.

It felt strange to be back at Yoshiya's house so soon after New Year's, a night of celebration that hadn't gone quite the way he'd planned—but in the end, there was only one person he ever ran to. Maybe that was why Masaya hadn't seemed even a little surprised when Reiichi asked to be dropped off here instead of the dorms.

It wasn't like he was running from anything in particular. Dinner had been fine, or predictable at least—cacophony at a crowded table, the customary badinage, his father and eldest cousins handling the lion's share of the conversation while Reiichi lounged back in his chair, earning a dark look from Tsukasa every time he took a sip of Muscat—but for some reason his heart hadn't been in it. Maybe he owed that to his prickly younger brother, who showed up late huffing and puffing as if he'd run all the way and scooted in so close that Reiichi took his elbow in the ribs at least twice. Or perhaps it had been the nauseatingly heavy food, the pungent aromas of garlic and seared scallops making his stomach turn. But if he was being completely honest, Reiichi thought it was probably that every time his eyes cut across the table, they landed on Kiyomine, glued to Ayako's side and glaring at the waiters like some kind of ineffectual puppy guard dog, and every time someone set a glass down too hard he heard it again—the sound of Fujishima's head slamming against the wall, the sharp gasp surprised out of him by the wild fury on Kiyomine's face. Reiichi was no stranger to his bratty little cousin's thoughtlessness, but Kiyomine had really outdone himself this time.

Almost as soon as they were seated he'd started to feel guilty for leaving Fujishima at the hospital, a churning in his stomach that only got worse every time he glanced at his phone hoping for news from Yoshiya and found the black face still infuriatingly blank. It wasn't like Yoshiya not to contact him if there was trouble—but then, Yoshiya had always been the type to let him know if there _wasn't_ trouble, too, at least a text or something to put his mind at ease. The whole thing left Reiichi feeling jumbled and kind of jumpy, like he just needed to get away from this, take refuge somewhere quiet for a while. That was when he'd hit upon the brilliant idea of hiding out at Yoshiya's until school started up again. A few days of sleeping in late and letting Yoshiya spoil him with Turkish coffee and blueberry and cream cheese French toast was exactly what he needed. He hadn't checked with Yoshiya first, but that didn't matter. He'd never been turned away. Reiichi wiped his feet on the familiar mat before pushing open the door—unlocked as always when he was expected—and letting himself into the house with a smile.

"Yoshiya!" he called out. "I brought provisions!" He got no reply.

As he toed off his shoes and wrapped his long checkered scarf around the peg of the coat rack, he realized how oddly quiet the house was, only the hush of the furnace rising to meet him as he moved into the hall. It was darker than he'd first thought, too—the front room was lit up, and there was a light burning in the stairwell to the second floor, but the kitchen and the large living room that opened out onto the snowy balcony were pitch black, as if someone had turned off every light except the few he might need. Strangest of all, Yoshiya's bedroom door was closed, no seam of light creeping out beneath the heavy oak door as from a laptop or a reading lamp. Reiichi blinked, a little unsure of himself for the first time. He hadn't asked Yoshiya to wait up for him or anything—still, he'd never arrived at Yoshiya's to find him already asleep, not even the time he was flying back from Amsterdam and got in four hours late due to weather. Curious and definitely _not_ a little put out, because it would be childish to be put out with Yoshiya for breaking plans they didn't have, he doubled back to tuck the swan non grata into the refrigerator and then crossed the hall and pushed the door soundlessly open, surprised all over again when the dim stripe of light fell across a lump tucked up in the bed.

_Someone_ was asleep, all right, but it definitely wasn't Yoshiya. Reiichi would recognize that charming little chipmunk face anywhere.

At least he knew what had happened to Fujishima.

Reiichi shifted to lean against the doorframe, deciphering what he could of the scene in the minimal light. It looked like Yoshiya and Fujishima had spent the evening engaged in the classic misadventures of single parenting: Fujishima was curled up on top of the blankets with another comforter thrown over him, like he'd resisted the idea of going to sleep until the instant he drifted off, and the dish on the nightstand had a distinctive halo of melted ice cream at the bottom, which Reiichi knew from experience was Yoshiya's river card when he couldn't convince ornery houseguests to eat anything more substantial. The drawers of the usually immaculate dresser were half-open and clearly rifled, which explained the familiar striped pajama shirt Fujishima was absolutely swimming in. Reiichi stifled a laugh with the back of his hand. He liked the way he looked in Yoshiya's clothes—the button-up shirts a little too long in the sleeves, sort of boyfriend chic—but Fujishima looked more like he'd been pinned into a blue and white parachute, and if he hadn't wriggled the whole ensemble off by morning, he was just as apt to suffocate in it. The entire panorama was like a monument to Yoshiya muddling through a situation that was clearly beyond him—but he thought he understood the desperation a little better when Fujishima shifted and the light from the hall fell across his exhausted face, illuminating puffy eyes and tear tracks still marring his pale cheeks.

Reiichi felt a soft hand settle against his back, looked up to find Yoshiya standing at his shoulder with his hair slicked back and a towel around his neck. "Sorry. I meant to be out of the shower before you arrived," Yoshiya told him, his voice so low Reiichi could barely hear it though they were inches apart.

Reiichi laughed under his breath. "That's okay. You smell good." Yoshiya raised an eyebrow as Reiichi took up one end of the towel and scrubbed it haphazardly against the back of his head—usually personal grooming went the other way between them, but sometimes it was fun to bedevil Yoshiya's wet hair. Reiichi shot him a cheeky smile, but he lost it as he glanced into the bedroom again, cocked his chin at the figure muted in the dark. "I see you brought home a stray."

Yoshiya's glasses were still foggy from the steam in the bathroom—nonetheless, Reiichi could tell that his expression had grown serious, too, his forehead furrowed at some troubling memory. "He's having a difficult night," he said at last.

Reiichi only knew half the story and he knew that wasn't the half of it. He pressed his hand a little over-hard against the door trim, felt one of the headless frame nails digging into the groove of his thumb.

The thing was, it had scared him—the news of the accident, sure, the initial uncertainty about Fujishima's father, but most of all the blur of sudden, violent motion, the whole force of Kiyomine's body shoving Fujishima up against the wall. Reiichi knew all about his cousin's temper, but that was the first time he'd been really afraid, for just a second, of what he might do. And then, in the silent taxi racing to the hospital through streets silver with hardening ice, his breath and everything else lodged in his throat, Reiichi was afraid of the utterly blank look on Fujishima's face, only the hands strangling each other in his lap betraying any emotion at all. He had nearly forgotten it in the rush of relief that Ayako was all right, that Kou was all right, that nothing was broken and no one had lost anything. Perhaps that had been a hasty conclusion. Suddenly he was so glad that he'd sent Yoshiya after Fujishima, and that Yoshiya had brought him here, that Fujishima wouldn't spend the night alone in the dorms waiting for someone who might not even come back—or, if he did, might still have that shadow across his face, the maelstrom of helplessness and rage Reiichi had seen burning in him every time they locked eyes across the dinner table…

Reiichi shook his head, pushed the memory away. Those were the kind of thoughts he'd come here to escape. He leaned into Yoshiya and pressed his cheek against his shoulder, breathed in the warm scent of brown sugar and cocoa butter still clinging to his warm skin. Yoshiya had a habit of just using whatever shampoo his younger sister left in the upstairs bathroom—which was the main reason one of Sawa's Christmas presents from the Kashiwagis had been a very posh set of brown sugar–scented bath products. Reiichi enjoyed keeping that secret to himself. When he opened his eyes again, it wasn't hard to smile at Fujishima anymore, whose hands had slipped down in the monstrous sleeves and disappeared as if into a pair of mittens.

"He's adorable," Reiichi murmured against his companion's shoulder. "Let's get married and adopt him."

For a second, he felt Yoshiya stiffen, a muscle clenching underneath his jaw—strange, because Yoshiya never stiffened when he said things like that. Reiichi lifted his head and peered up into his companion's face, wondering just what it was Yoshiya was trying so hard not to tell him. He wasn't nearly so fond of secrets being kept from him.

Yoshiya ran a hand through his damp hair, a gesture that sent a few absent drops sliding down into the towel. "I told him you'd be stopping in. He couldn't stay awake long enough to see you, but in the morning, if you could talk to him before…"

"You must be joking." Yoshiya blinked at him, and Reiichi lifted his hands in an expansive shrug. "What kind of a fool would I have to be pass up on this chance to have Fujishima all to myself? Well, I suppose you'll be here, too, but as a rule I skip you in the count." He could see the corners of Yoshiya's lips twitching just a little, teased that into a full smile as he added, somewhat more genuinely, "I'll stay. I do expect breakfast service, though."

"So the usual, then," Yoshiya deadpanned. He set one hand on the doorknob but hesitated before he'd pulled it more than a couple of inches to. "Reiichi," he began, the words barely a whisper in the darkness. "I think he's in trouble."

Reiichi wondered if Yoshiya had ever looked so serious, or so worried. He studied those solemn features for a long moment; then he reached out and laid his hand over his companion's, tugged the bedroom door the rest of the way closed with a decisive click. "He _was_ in trouble. He'll be fine now. He's in exceptional hands."

Yoshiya gave in to a little smile. He turned his hand over to press their palms together, squeezed softly as he intertwined their fingers. "Would those be your hands or my hands?" he asked.

Reiichi scoffed. "My hands, of course. I am the dorm president, after all, singularly responsible for one hundred and fifty students. A renowned, unparalleled dorm president," he added, tacking on more praise as Yoshiya's unbearably smug eyebrow crept toward his hairline. "An inspiration to future presidents."

"Yes, you are," Yoshiya agreed, but somehow Reiichi still got the feeling he was being humored. "Where would you like to spend the night? I'll be on the futon in the guest room, but…do you want to sleep with Fujishima?"

It was a tempting proposition—it wasn't every day that he had the opportunity to cuddle up with a defenseless and adorable Fujishima, especially in the extravagant nest of blankets and off-kilter pillows Yoshiya's bed was rapidly becoming. And then there was the chance to witness Fujishima waking up, rubbing sleepily at his eyes and his bedhead—and even potentially to photograph it, because there was a high demand for such things and Reiichi was nothing if not conscious of market dynamics. Ultimately, though, he shook his head.

"I don't want to wake him. I'll just curl up with you." Reiichi lowered his chin, looking up at Yoshiya fairly deliberately through his eyelashes. "It is a small futon, though. I might have to get in close."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Yoshiya replied without so much as a hitch. "Do you need to borrow a toothbrush?"

Reiichi was a mature, celebrated scion of the Kashiwagi dynasty, a brilliant mind toasted as the heir to the enviable throne—which was why he waited until Yoshiya's back was turned to stick out his tongue. He wasn't really trying to start anything, naturally, but sometimes he thought it would be nice to get a bigger reaction from Yoshiya when he said things like that—just a little awe, a double take or a hard swallow, enough to know that the idea of sleeping all tangled up with him put Yoshiya in mind of something sexier than plaque and mint toothpaste.

Yoshiya paused as they reached the guest room. "I have to warn you—he has your favorite pillow."

Reiichi clicked his tongue. "My _second_ favorite pillow," he corrected, settling a hand into the center of Yoshiya's soft T-shirt, where he liked to rest his head, press his ear against Yoshiya's chest and fall asleep wondering if the flutter in that heartbeat was for him. He offered the taller boy a smile. "He's welcome to borrow it for as long as he wants, provided my first favorite pillow does its job properly."

Yoshiya laughed, a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated through the bones of his hand, and the sensation made Reiichi laugh, too, curling his fingers into the folds of gray cotton. He still didn't know exactly what was wrong with Fujishima, but he knew they were in the right place to figure it out. Everything seemed easier when they were laughing in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Takara woke to a pounding head, eyes that itched like they'd been sandblasted, and the disorientation of having no idea where he was. It took a few seconds of staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, crisscrossed with soft lines of sunlight leaking past the edges of the blinds, for the memories to trickle back in—the rattle and bump of the long cab ride to Okuno-sempai's house, his blotchy face buried in the shoulder of the older boy's coat, and then sinking down in the queen-sized bed in borrowed pajamas, the vague sensation of someone tucking a blanket around him just as his eyes slipped shut. _Where_ wasn't so bad—but of course remembering _where_ brought the _why_ back, too, and suddenly his stomach was churning with feelings he didn't want, the dangerous kind of feelings that stung behind his eyes and made him feel like he was going to throw up. Takara rolled onto his side and curled his knees in until he could get his arms around them, stared hard at his reflection in the glass-paneled bookcase.

He wasn't going to cry. His head was still throbbing from all the crying he'd done yesterday—or maybe that was just from the lump on the back of his skull where he'd hit the wall, staring up into black eyes that were fierce like an animal's, like he'd never seen…Takara shook himself, pulled the comforter over his head like he could close the thoughts out. That wasn't the memory that had tortured him all night, anyway—it was the way that same face looked overcome by relief, his hands digging into his sister's black coat, eyes squeezed shut like he didn't need to see anything, because everything he cared about was already in his arms…

_As long as you're all right, Ayako, I don't care about anyone else._

Takara sucked in a sharp breath and pushed himself up, shoving the blanket decisively to the foot of the bed as he swung his legs over the side. There was no point thinking about those things, because there was nothing _to_ think about—he'd made an assumption about the relationship between himself and Ki—and that other person, and now it had been corrected, that was all. He'd indulged himself enough the night before, sobbing until his throat was raw, and he could forgive himself for that because it had been a trying day with…multiple distress factors, but he was sixteen already, and there was no way he was going to greet Okuno-sempai this morning with that same flushed face. He'd dealt with the situation, and now it was over.

Besides, he'd never been in Okuno's house before, and he wasn't going to waste this rare chance to poke around.

Scrubbing the crust of old tears— _not_ new tears—from his cheeks with the back of one hand, Takara stood up, catching a glimpse of himself in the glass bookcase doors. He looked like a total mess, his hair pushed up one side of his head in a faux-hawk, the over-large striped shirt hanging off one shoulder in classic street urchin style. It was all too reminiscent of one picture in the photo album he'd taken with him to school, one of his grandmother's favorites—him at maybe six, bundled up in a messily buttoned long-sleeve shirt with a rainbow of paint splotches all over his pouting face. The story involved a day trip to a children's fun center, where he'd apparently turned the tempera paints on himself, making an Impressionist masterpiece of his summer camp T-shirt, and rather than guarantee a catastrophe in the car, his dad had…

No, that was off-limits too.

The deep breath hurt a little. Takara made himself take another one anyway. Probably he was just hungry, since all he'd had for dinner was four scoops of chocolate brownie ice cream. Hunger always felt like this, an incredibly empty space inside of him aching to be filled. He mussed his hands through his hair, glanced around for the pants and shirt he'd shed last night before bed, though he had a sinking feeling Okuno had taken them away to be washed. There was no way he was going in search of breakfast in his boxers. Takara made his way around the room, peering underneath the bed and at the alphabetically arranged bookshelf, even stealing a peek under the clothes at the bottom of each dresser drawer, ostensibly in the process of finding a pair of sweatpants he could borrow.

Five minutes later, striped shirt tucked into the sweats he'd rolled to his knees (and double-knotted four times), Takara flopped back onto the bed, sorely disappointed. Even after a thorough search of all the nooks and crannies, Okuno's room was just _boring_. He briefly thought he'd hit pay dirt when he found a middle school yearbook hidden under a bulky quilt on the top shelf of the closet, but that turned out to be a total bust: if Okuno had changed at all since middle school, it was only in height, and the notes in the back were all bland, _Let's stay in touch_ or _It was nice to be in class with you_ —the things you wrote to somebody you didn't really know. He'd had much better luck rummaging around the Kashiwagi house, where he'd stumbled across an entire cache of real handcuffs (Masaya's, maybe, left over from his time on the force?).

Speaking of Kashiwagis, the only remotely embarrassing thing he'd found wasn't even tucked away face-down in the sock drawer: it was a picture of Reiichi-sempai on the nightstand, but not just like a picture so much as a glamour shot in a silver frame, with Reiichi's looping signature scrawled along the bottom in glittering purple ink. Reiichi looked like he should be posing for a catalogue, lounging on his stomach on an antique divan with his arms folded under his chin and his feet crossed artfully in the air. Takara almost expected to see an icon advertising Clive Christian cologne in the corner. Instead the air over Reiichi's head hosted another purple inscription— _To Yoshiya: So you'll never have to sleep alone._ Takara shook his head, a little weirded out. It was the kind of gift that would maybe be funny as a gag, but someone had clearly taken the joke too far by the time it was framed in the place of honor on the nightstand. It was just the sort of thing a Kashiwagi would do, the sort of thing he could actually imagine Kiyomine—

Takara's breath hitched, the impact of that name knocking the wind out of him. He rolled onto his stomach, crushed a pillow over his head to block out those things he wasn't thinking about, definitely wasn't thinking about, definitely wasn't dwelling on curled up alone in Okuno's bed. Like whether Kiyomine had ever come back to the dorm the night before, and if he had, had he noticed Takara was gone? Had he missed him? Would he care if Takara didn't come back until school started, or if maybe he never came back at all—transferred schools, just disappeared like he'd considered doing the night before, walking blind into the storm. He could go anywhere now, he'd realized, trying not to choke on the thought—he and Kiyomine weren't anything, and his dad was gone, probably for years, and in six weeks there wouldn't be anything tying him to that neighborhood where he'd grown up, the big porch and the garden where he'd chased dragonflies through the long shadows of summer sunflowers…

Takara squeezed his eyes shut, pressed the pillow as hard as he could against his ears. He couldn't lose it again—couldn't let those thoughts crawl back inside his head. He didn't have a family, and he didn't have Kiyomine, and it didn't hurt to be alone because he'd been alone for a long time—

Was that…was there laughter coming from the other room?

Reluctantly, Takara pushed the pillow off and sat up, straining his ears for any sound from beyond the heavy oak door. Yes, there was definitely someone laughing—and not just someone, but someone Takara recognized only too well, the voice of the smirking cologne model in the nightstand photo. So Okuno had been right about Reiichi coming over. Takara had a knee-jerk urge to stay stubbornly right where he was, even if he was a little curious what could possibly have Reiichi in stitches one room over—but even harder to ignore was the sweet, warm scent filling up the bedroom, like sugar and butter and cream all melded into one mouth-watering whole…no doubt a trap set by a devious sempai who was all too familiar with his weakness for delicious food. Takara wrapped his arms over his empty stomach, torn. He didn't really want to leave the safety of the bedroom, didn't want to have to look at Reiichi and Okuno looking at him and know they were thinking about yesterday, even if they didn't say anything. On the other hand, it wasn't like he could stay holed up in here all day licking dried flakes from the ice cream bowl…

Takara's stomach gave a low grumble, enough to prod him out of bed. He stopped in front of the door to straighten his ragtag getup, hesitated again with his hand on the knob—then he shook his head, fortifying himself with a deep breath. If he really couldn't stand it, he could always grab his breakfast and run. With that comforting backup plan, he pulled the door open and sidled out into the hallway.

The smell was even more enticing out here, as was the burst of laughter coming from the kitchen, Reiichi's voice echoing under the vaulted ceilings. Takara tiptoed toward the living room and the enormous kitchen he'd only glanced at the night before, listening to the banter that had been muffled by the heavy bedroom door.

"Sorry, sorry," Reiichi was saying, though he didn't sound all that sorry to Takara. "Here—let me try again."

"No, Reiichi." Okuno's voice had an edge to it, the one Takara recognized as the older boy's patience wearing thin. "That's enough. The last one landed in the glaze."

Reiichi clicked his tongue. "Don't be revisionist, Yoshiya. It landed on the counter—it _bounced_ into the glaze."

More puzzled than ever, Takara paused at the end of the hallway and peeked around the corner, blinking against the sunlight pouring through the balcony doors. If there was a Heaven for people with a wicked sweet tooth, it probably looked just like Okuno's kitchen right now: the marble breakfast bar was spread with bottle after bottle of syrups, drizzles, and preserves—maple, chocolate, hazelnut, strawberry, and an iconic canister of whipped cream positioned next to a bowl of cut strawberries. At the center of it all was a large dish of whatever he'd been smelling from the bedroom—coffee cake? breakfast casserole?—and it looked just as good as he'd hoped, lightly browned dough overrun with juicy blueberries. Okuno stood at the stove stirring a saucepan of shimmering purple glaze, and Reiichi was seated across from him, his bare feet hooked into the bottom rung of his high-backed chair as he leaned over the breakfast bar, offering a forkful of whatever it was to the cook. Okuno opened his mouth to oblige him, but he pulled back when he spotted Takara in the doorway, their eyes locking for one serious moment before the older boy smiled and tipped his head. Reiichi twisted in his chair, fork held aloft like a scepter.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in—or out, I suppose," Reiichi declared as he beckoned Takara forward with a grin, looking a little catlike himself. "Fujishima, c'mere. Yoshiya made his signature blueberry French toast, and I've been experimenting with different toppings. What do you think about the meringue?"

Almost before he realized it, Takara found himself seated on the chair next to Reiichi's, his feet swinging awkwardly from the high seat while he chewed on a heady bite of blueberries and whipped egg whites. Across the bar, Okuno dished up two squares of French toast and drizzled them with the warm blueberry glaze. Suddenly Takara was so hungry he thought he could devour the entire two-thirds-full casserole pan. Okuno must have caught his gluttonous look as he slid the plate over.

"Start with this," Okuno suggested, giving the bowl of strawberries a not-so-subtle nudge as well. "You don't want to end up with a bloody nose. Let me get you something to drink."

"Try this. Turkish coffee," Reiichi broke in, handing Takara an extra-large saucer. The liquid inside was as black as ink, broken by a soft foam rim—and it tasted about like ink too, Takara decided after one small sip, working his tongue against his teeth and nearly spilling the mug in his haste to get rid of it.

"Ugh. That's awful, Reiichi-sempai. It's like drinking mud!" Takara seized the older boy's glass of water, rinsing the bitter grains out of his mouth and only swallowing them because it seemed rude to run to the sink. "Um, could I just have regular…?"

Before he could even finish the question, Okuno set another cup in front of him, this one brimming with just the right amber-colored coffee, the perfect mix of milk and honey that was the reason he'd run to Reiichi and Okuno's room so many evenings at the dorm when he couldn't sleep, or when he was in a really bad mood because of—Takara swallowed the thought down with a gulp of coffee, winced a little as the hot liquid slid down his throat. He blinked up at Okuno through watery eyes. "Thanks."

"It's all right," Okuno assured him. "Only Reiichi likes Turkish coffee."

Reiichi huffed against the lip of his cup. "Well, excuse me and five hundred years of kahvecibaşıs for disagreeing with you."

The luscious French toast demanded his full attention. Takara let the conversation slip away from him as he sawed off an enormous bite and closed his eyes, taking in the taste of blueberries and gooey cream cheese and the warmth of the kitchen and the pleasant background hum of Reiichi and Okuno's debate about coffee preparation in the Ottoman state. He couldn't remember ever having breakfast with just Okuno and Reiichi before, but it felt nice, normal, comfortable in a way that he almost couldn't identify. Maybe it reminded him of his own kitchen many years ago, when the house was still full and it would have been his grandmother at the stove, shooting him a wink every now and then over her shoulder. He cut his thoughts off right there, opened his eyes on a good memory to find Reiichi laughing, one arm extended awkwardly across the bar to Okuno, who was diligently blotting a blueberry stain out of the too-long sleeve—Reiichi had obviously borrowed some of Okuno's clothes, too, though he looked a lot better in them than Takara did, probably because he was one of those annoying people who looked good in everything. Between them all they kind of had a Goldilocks and the Three Bears vibe going on, and Takara wasn't sure if it was that thought or the resigned look on Okuno's face that made him smile, really smile, for the first time since rolling out of bed, but either way he took Reiichi's dare to slather the next bite of French toast with caramel pecan sauce. It was way too much, and honestly he almost gagged on it, but sometimes too much was just right.

It was so fun to just cut loose, racking his brain for more and more unusual combinations to challenge Reiichi to choke down, that Takara completely forgot what he was trying not to think about. So he was totally off his guard when, halfway through the second square of French toast, Reiichi hooked an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close enough to bump their heads together.

"Hey," Reiichi murmured, nuzzling his cheek against Takara's temple. "I'm really sorry for leaving you last night. Forgive me, okay?"

Takara's fingers tightened around the handle of his fork, the dull metal digging into his palm as his wide eyes fixed on Okuno across the breakfast bar, watching both of them with a wary expression. Suddenly it felt like a bite of French toast the size of a baseball was caught in his throat. He wanted to tell Reiichi that he was fine—everything was fine, and yesterday was no big deal, he barely remembered it anymore, but somehow he just couldn't get the words out. He couldn't even get himself to breathe.

Reiichi pulled back far enough to meet his eyes. "Listen, about Kiyomine…" Takara felt the name go through him like an electric shock, the nerves in his ears tingling and his brain horribly fuzzy. He could do this—he could sit here and listen with a straight face to someone talking about Kiyomine, because he was over it, all of it, and really there was nothing to get over, because he and Kiyomine were nothing, had always been nothing. And that was why he didn't have to turn away, could look up at Reiichi without so much as blinking as he said, "When school starts again, you don't have to…"

Takara was totally in control of himself—but somehow his face must not have been getting the message, because Reiichi stopped talking abruptly and just stared at him for a long moment with wide eyes, eyes that were the exact same color as—

Then Takara's brain short-circuited as Reiichi seized the whipped cream canister and sprayed a foamy white line across the bridge of his nose, leaving him gasping as the breath suddenly burst up from his lungs.

"Wha—Reiichi-sempai, what are you—" Takara couldn't even get the question out before Reiichi squirted a fluffy pile of whipped cream into his flapping mouth, too, and then he was spluttering instead of speaking, trying not to breathe it in. Okuno looked as shocked as Takara felt—though not nearly as shocked as he was a second later when Reiichi slipped around the breakfast bar to smear a gob of whipped cream across his stoic cheek, too. Reiichi grinned at his handiwork.

"Never mind all that," he announced, waving the canister dismissively. "I have a brilliant plan. First, we hit the row at Daikanyama for some clothes shopping. Then we'll have lunch in Chinatown—your treat, Yoshiya," he added over his shoulder, earning a raised eyebrow from the taller boy very deliberately toweling off his cheek. Takara knew he should be wiping his face, too, but he was still too surprised to move, lost the opportunity when Reiichi reached over the counter and grabbed his hands, one of them still frozen around his fork. "And then we'll come back here and you'll spend the rest of the break with us, doing nothing but enjoying ourselves. We'll have a regular bacchanal!" he declared. Okuno gave him a sharp look.

"With less drinking, I hope."

Reiichi shrugged. "We'll see." Then he snatched the dishrag from the counter and smeared it mostly unhelpfully over Takara's face, smooshing his nose in the process. "First, though, you'd better change, Fujishima—right now you look like an illegitimate child dropped on the doorstep in the middle of the night."

"Thank you for that image," Okuno told him through a sigh. "Fujishima, your clothes are in the bathroom right across from the bedroom—and you may want to use the facial soap in there, too."

A little numb, feeling like someone had picked him up and shaken him, Takara slid down from his chair and made his way to the bathroom, barely aware of the hallway or the soft carpet under his feet. His face felt sticky and sort of raw, his skin flushed from the blood pounding in his head, reminding him painfully of the lump hidden under his hair. He turned the water in the bathroom sink on extra cold and ducked his face under the faucet, wishing the freezing water would calm the roiling in his stomach. Maybe eating all those weird toppings hadn't been such a good idea. Takara opened his eyes and stared at the spray rushing over his nose. He liked the idea of spending the rest of break here at Okuno's house, not having to deal with any of it yet—but even that silver lining was overshadowed by a storm cloud, one that thundered in his head as he toweled off his face. Winter break would be over in three days, and then what? Would he go back to the dorms? Would he go home? No—he shook his head hard, blinked the sting out of his eyes. No, he'd never go home again.

It wasn't until he'd stripped off the enormous shirt and reached for his own clothes that he realized what the black object on top of them was—his phone, the green alert light blinking in the corner. Robotically, he picked it up. Nineteen missed calls—one from his dad, eighteen from Kiyomine. No messages. Takara leaned over the sink to rest his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror, staring into the dark brown centers of his own eyes.

No messages. Somehow, after everything that had happened, Kiyomine was still leaving it all at his feet, forcing him to make the next move. The missed calls meant he wasn't going away, but that was all they meant; they offered no hint of what Kiyomine was thinking, what he thought Takara was thinking. And his dad—his dad who already felt insubstantial, just a name on a glowing screen. Takara wondered if he'd call back, wondered if he'd bother to tell his dad what he'd figured out last night, shoving his hands down into his pockets on the way into the hospital—that somewhere in the confusion he'd dropped his change of guardian form, that indescribably empty piece of paper lost in the night, like everything else he used to have. It didn't matter. Takara sighed, watched his breath fog the cold glass. He wished his problems were the kind that would go away if he just ignored them long enough, but he hadn't gotten that lucky.

Well, that wasn't quite true. There was one problem that would go away if he just shut his eyes, kept his head down for six weeks, until the sign in the yard had been traded for a moving truck idling in the driveway, the pictures on the shelves in the living room replaced by another family's pictures, another family's voices and memories and new footsteps. If he could hold out for six weeks, he'd never have to set foot again in that kitchen where he'd stood rooted to the spot almost one day ago exactly, listened to his father tell him that it didn't make sense to hold onto the house when he was going to be gone for close to two years, not when Takara was living in the dorms now, when he seemed so much happier at school with his friends. He was welcome to keep whatever he wanted, of course—he could work it out with his new guardian, here was the name of a moving service…

Takara had wanted to slap his hands over his ears, to run to Kiyomine and put it all out of his head, but that was before Kiyomine…and now he was glad that he hadn't told anyone, could just pretend it wasn't happening until it wasn't anymore. In six weeks, the house and everything in it would just go away. Like his father. Like Kiyomine.

Takara blinked hard and squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hands over his pounding heart. "Kiyomine," he whispered against the glass. "Kiyomine. Kiyomine." But it was no good. That name still hurt every time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra Note on this Chapter: In this chapter, I have made a few changes from the Takara character in the manga. I know that in the manga, Takara's girlfriends picked out his clothes, but for a richer character, I’ve decided to make his cute fashion/style choices more intentional. I understand this is different from the explanation of his fashion given in the manga, but I think this way is more fun and adds more character.

**Chapter Four  
**

Admittedly Reiichi had instigated the whole thing himself, but even he had to concede the game had gotten a little out of hand. Still, as he lounged on the settee in the private dressing room, twirling a complimentary flute of Lauquen Artes mineral water and considering the rack of blouses and chiffon dresses the attendant had just wheeled in, he had to conclude that his logic had been irrefutable on one point: Fujishima was remarkably well suited to women's clothing.

It had all started when Fujishima stepped out of the bathroom after breakfast and Reiichi, glancing up at him, nearly choked on the last mouthful of his exceptional and vastly underappreciated Turkish coffee. In the night's confusion, he'd entirely forgotten that Fujishima had been moving back into the dorms yesterday before he was whisked off to the hospital; the baggy baseball T-shirt and ratty jeans he'd donned were fine for unpacking boxes and fighting with your irascible roommate, but they were certainly no good for shopping—at least not the kind of shopping Reiichi had in mind. He could hear Yoshiya on the phone in the other room, arranging a town car to take them around Daikanyama for the day, and in his absence Reiichi was struck by an excellent idea—a bit too excellent, it had turned out.

With a rustle of fabric and clink of buckles, Fujishima emerged from behind the screen and moved to study himself in the three-panel mirror, pivoting on one foot to consider his audience over his shoulder. "Okay—what do you think about this one, Reiichi-sempai?" he asked.

Appraising the younger boy in his layered V- and scoop-necked T-shirts and cutoff khakis, one leg rolled artfully higher than the other, Reiichi thought he might have a future as a spread designer for _Teen Vogue_. But Fujishima could be unpredictable sometimes about what he considered insults, so he chose a less ambiguous compliment.

"You look adorable. Another perfect collaboration," Reiichi assured him, raising his flute in a toast.

It was something he'd noticed since day one: Fujishima's natural preference for clothes that made him look ridiculously cute. Reiichi had an impeccable sense of style himself, of course, but his fell along very different lines—the Kashiwagi aesthetic tended toward suave and sultry, not graphic tees and skinny jeans and three-quarter-sleeve jackets with flowers embroidered on the pockets, somewhere between tomboy and teen idol panache.

Reiichi had already had his fun; he had sent eight or nine outfits along with the attendant to be boxed and was draped across the settee in the clothes he'd chosen for the rest of the day, black slacks with a burgundy silk shirt and silver-blue ascot tucked into the collar. Yoshiya had given him a look when he commandeered a fedora from the hat rack in the previous store, but Yoshiya had never really understood the value of accessorizing anyway—unlike Fujishima, who had hooked his thumb into one of the two studded belts he'd looped around his waist and was pouting at the image in the mirror, unknowingly completing the teen model look.

"I don't know. It might be too derivative. I'm not sure the collars really work together." Fujishima twisted to consider himself from a few more angles—including the back, Reiichi noticed—and then glanced at the door to the fitting room, his eyebrows drawn together. "When's Okuno-sempai coming back?"

Reiichi was deeply offended that Fujishima seemed to trust Yoshiya's judgment—Yoshiya, who insisted on burying his perfectly stunning form under the ugliest business classic, CFO-on-a-golf-course striped button-downs he could find—over that of the person in Dior, but he tried not to show it. Maybe it had something to do with Fujishima's target audience. "He should be back soon. He said something about getting a coffee after he gave our things to the attendant." From the line wrapped around the second-floor coffee shop when they'd first entered the towering department store, Reiichi had a feeling it would take Yoshiya at least another fifteen minutes, but that was probably exactly what he'd intended—that persistent vein had been throbbing in Yoshiya's forehead ever since Fujishima met him in the living room in an outfit borrowed from his little sister's closet.

The thing was, Reiichi had a theory that Fujishima didn't mind wearing girls' clothes, didn't even mind how good he looked in them—it was being teased about it that got his fur all up. And so, the angel on his shoulder being otherwise engaged at that critical moment in the kitchen, he'd told Fujishima to wait while he grabbed him some _loaner clothes_ , and just conveniently forgot to mention that he was off to fink a couple items from Sawa's room. Like all members of the Okuno clan, Sawa was pretty tall and broad-shouldered, especially for a twelve-year-old girl—luckily, Fujishima was perfectly pocket-sized for a sixteen-year-old boy, and the intersection of the two, as he'd predicted, had been flawless. Fujishima had taken the bait without so much as a suspicious glance, and by the time Yoshiya got off the phone, Reiichi had already applauded Fujishima into an off-the-shoulder crop top with bell sleeves and a pair of short overalls, the look completed by a distressed pair of black leggings.

 _It's January_ , had been Yoshiya's pedantic complaint—as if there weren't a beautiful red pea coat in the closet to finish off the ensemble. Whatever else he thought he had kept to himself, though Reiichi could see the muscle in his jaw twitching all the way to the town car.

It wasn't until they reached the first store and got liberally spritzed by the girl at the perfume counter that Reiichi considered that perhaps his plan had worked too well. Still, he was having far too much fun to throw a spanner in the works by coming clean now—and as long as Fujishima kept finding things he liked, what was the harm? So they both smelled rather strongly of night-blooming jasmine. Yoshiya had slipped out of bed that morning still smelling like brown sugar.

Fujishima gave a last runway twirl and then turned to the racks of clothes. "Hmm. Well, I guess I'll try one more thing. There was this shirt I liked…" He dug through the cacophony of chiffon and sloping sleeves with gusto, the clatter of sliding hangers broken only when he paused to peer around one end of the rack. "They brought us a lot of dresses this time, Reiichi-sempai. They must be getting us confused with some other fitting room."

"Hard to imagine another explanation," Reiichi agreed, hiding his smile with the glass flute until Fujishima was safely back behind the screen. Privately, he thought the dresses spoke to desperation on the part of the fitting room attendant, who must have been confused why none of her suggestions for cute shift and A-line dresses had yet made it into the yes pile. A joke best swallowed with a sip of sparkling water—he had a feeling Fujishima wouldn't appreciate it.

Still, Reiichi found himself smiling, the expression tugging at his cheeks a little more than usual. It was hard not to smile when he'd had such a fun morning, riding tantivy all through the upscale shopping district with Fujishima in tow, laughing and having a good time—and Reiichi was finding that as much as he enjoyed being spoiled himself, it was almost as enjoyable to spoil someone else, something he'd never gotten much chance at growing up, since Tsukasa was always a little sourpuss and Kiyomine all but incapable of having a good time. He wondered if he could convince Fujishima to become his permanent shopping buddy. Yoshiya was a fine escort for most things, but as far as shopping went, he lacked enthusiasm, not to mention original thought—his ability to walk into five stores and find the exact same polo in shades of the same color was impressive, maybe, but it certainly wasn't very interesting. Nor had it escaped Reiichi that they were all wearing variations on the same blue-striped shirt at the breakfast table that morning, like a lazy Sunday edition of _Who Wore It Better_. (He was voting for Fujishima.)

The joke was on Yoshiya today, though: Reiichi knew all his measurements by heart, and he'd arranged for a few sleek dress shirts and silk ties to slip unseen into the bags—just the things he knew would look utterly devastating. Reiichi shot himself a devilish smile in the mirror. If Yoshiya didn't like them, well…that was too bad. Kashiwagis didn't do returns, or receipts.

Speaking of returns…where had Yoshiya gotten off to? Reiichi glanced at the door and then at the racks again, his eyes drawn to the explosion of patterns and satin among the dresses. It was a shame, really, that there was no way of getting Fujishima to try on one or two—the attendant had a good eye, and Reiichi remembered how excellent he'd looked dolled up as Beauty for the Miss Contest. Of course, Yoshiya would never approve of goading Fujishima into cross-dressing…but then again, Yoshiya wasn't here. Reiichi recognized this moment immediately—the moment when he could do the right thing or the fun thing. He cocked an ear toward the devil on his shoulder, pondering his options as Fujishima stepped out from behind the screen once more.

"Last one," Fujishima declared. "What do you think?"

Reiichi grinned, loving the sailor-style collar and the way the tee didn't quite meet up with tan capris decorated with drawstrings and buckles at the knees. "I think that's the best one yet. We'll tell the attendant to cut the tags off—you're wearing that for the rest of the day."

Fujishima brightened, tugging on the brim of his canvas pageboy hat. "Really? I liked it, too. You're not just jerking me around, right?"

"Me? I wouldn't do that," Reiichi protested, knowing very well that he would, just not about this. "If Yoshiya were here, he'd agree." He glanced once more toward the silent door—then he made up his mind and got to his feet, leaving his fedora behind on the couch. "Hey, Fujishima…I have a really fun idea."

"What kind of idea?" Fujishima asked, looking wary already. Reiichi tried to keep his smile under wraps.

"Just a joke we could play on Yoshiya. I guarantee you, he'll never see it coming."

Yoshiya didn't see it coming. And when he slipped into the dressing room to find Reiichi in a shimmering silver sheath dress and Fujishima decked out in punk princess lace, both of them strutting toward him in Divine, drag-queen-of-the-century style, he stepped back so hard he slammed his head into the doorframe. Reiichi felt a little bad about the blow to the back of the head, but the huge, ugly coffee stain down the front of an uglier green striped shirt was a godsend—just the excuse he needed to get Yoshiya into that white silk shirt and wine-red tie he'd matched to his own outfit. And if Yoshiya's expression was a little pinched in the self-timed pictures of the three of them, Reiichi and Fujishima hanging off his arms, well, it was hardly noticeable when he otherwise looked so good.

Reiichi was sure he'd be laughing soon enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

After four hours dedicated to a take-no-prisoners raid through the most expensive shopping in Daikanyama, Yoshiya felt he was justified insisting they stop for lunch. That said, the ritzy confectioners' shop tucked away at the back of a wintry courtyard, its butter-yellow walls decorated with china cups and ornate ladles on warm cherry shelves, was hardly what he'd had in mind.

In retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised. He had been keeping company with Reiichi long enough to know that CocoaBella was a Kashiwagi favorite, supposedly because the master chef and Kashiwagi Senior had trained side by side at a noted patisserie in Paris at a time when the Kashiwagi patriarch was considering devoting his life to artisan baking instead of dominating business sectors on both sides of the Pacific. Or at least, that was the story as Reiichi told it. Sometimes Yoshiya wondered how much of the Kashiwagi mythos was fact and how much was fanciful embellishment with which the world had just decided to play along.

Fujishima's face was in rapture as he came in out of the January chill and took in the rows of three-bite cakes, artisan chocolates, and other designer delicacies laid out in the long glass case, staring particularly long at the lush drinking chocolate spilling into a copper boiler on the other side of the service counter. The air was so thick with sucrose it was difficult to breathe. Yoshiya arched an eyebrow at their grinning cicerone, draped around Fujishima's shoulders in a lazy embrace.

"What happened to Chinatown?" he asked mildly, more than happy to treat if there was actual food involved.

Reiichi waved the question away. "Don't be intransigent, Yoshiya. I'm sure we'll end up there eventually. We're just stopping in for a little _quelque chose_. Now, Fujishima—where do you want to start?"

Yoshiya's French was admittedly no match for Reiichi's, but he was certain the term _quelque chose_ did not apply to what Reiichi brought back to the tiled café table: an utter smorgasbord of cakes and bonbons, truffles and candied flowers and sugar-glazed blackberries on plastic skewers. Reiichi had never been the type to eat very much, but he seemed to be on a mission to sample at least one bite of everything, and Fujishima was more than happy to finish what he'd started. Yoshiya had observed before that the younger boy seemed to have a separate stomach for desserts—still, he couldn't help wondering if a little of Fujishima's enthusiasm owed to the incredibly wide eyes with which he'd regarded the prices on the menu, no doubt the first time he'd eaten at a shop where individual slices of cake were all in the double digits.

 _Money is an ugly topic and we'll not speak of it_ , had been Reiichi's response the only time Fujishima tried to bring it up—but Yoshiya knew that awareness didn't go away so easily for those not raised with the Kashiwagis, and even he was a little horrified by the way Reiichi simply tossed anything he didn't like from the first bite.

The last round, at least, had been a success: Fujishima was working on a thick slice of vanilla rose pound cake, and Reiichi had seized something layered with strawberries and champagne, the only item yet he'd kept for himself. Yoshiya had ordered what he always ordered: a small square of tiramisu, a poor substitute for the black coffee he'd wound up wearing. Somehow, he was finding even that difficult to get through.

"Yoshiya, here—try this," Reiichi insisted, holding out the spongy champagne cake between his fingers.

Yoshiya sent him a flat look. On another day, he probably would have indulged Reiichi on that point—was a little horrified to acknowledge that he'd let Reiichi get away with feeding him in this very shop before—but they were attracting enough attention from the other patrons without eating out of each other's hands. It could have been Fujishima everyone was looking at—in his sailor-style top and the little panda backpack Reiichi had found… _somewhere_ , he couldn't have looked more suited to his surroundings if he'd been posing for a brochure. But Yoshiya had the uncomfortable feeling that those sideways glances were mostly directed at him, massively overdressed for a stop at a confectioners'—even _this_ confectioners'—and sitting as far back as possible from the table so as not to risk getting chocolate shavings and marscapone on his pristine Brioni tie. He felt a little like he'd run out of a five-star restaurant or a day trading at the exchange to go to a cake shop with his niece. Then again, there was always the chance people were just staring at Reiichi, tipped indolently back in his chair and licking the last traces of strawberry and champagne a little obscenely from his fingers.

"Mm…that's divine," Reiichi declared, his eyes fluttering closed. "You have to learn how to make that, Yoshiya. I can't have it getting away just because it's a seasonal item."

Yoshiya was making no promises. He was a fair cook when he tried—which was generally when Reiichi wanted something—but not good enough to put _that_ expression on Reiichi's face. "I'm sure it won't be a seasonal item very long, if you mention it to them," he replied, wondering if it was a symptom of a weak character that even as he said it he was already contemplating how he might imitate the recipe, how close an approximation he could manage. Reiichi's languid smile was probably for the influence he held over professional chefs, not over Yoshiya, but it suited those thoughts equally well.

In the chair to his left, Fujishima swung his feet in his new patterned canvas shoes, chasing brown and foamy white swirls through a tall, clear glass with a cookie straw. "So this in drinking chocolate?" he asked, sounding a little awed by the whole concept.

Reiichi grinned. "Actually, _that_ is a Kashiwagi special order, courtesy of my younger brother. Whenever Grandfather would take us here as kids, Tsukasa would get all upset because it was too hot and bitter for him to drink straight—he has a cat's tongue, like you, Fujishima." Reiichi leaned forward to rest his chin on his entwined hands. "So Grandfather got the confectioners to add whole cream to his. Apparently it's so popular it made the regular menu. Perfect for those who prefer things extra sweet."

Yoshiya doubted there was one menu in this city the Kashiwagis didn't have their fingerprints all over. But Fujishima seemed to have skipped over the casual abuse of power and money in favor of something else.

"Tsukasa has a sweet tooth?" he asked, picking up what was left of the pound cake. "He doesn't seem like the type at all."

"Oh, like you wouldn't believe," Reiichi confided with that special grin that always accompanied sharing other people's secrets. "He's so particular about his food—not too hot, not too spicy, and he's too embarrassed to order the same thing as anybody else, even if it's the only thing he likes on the menu. He used to get so red in the face when we'd go out for Russian and I'd steal the _pirozhki_ right out from under him…"

The Tsukasa roast came to an abrupt end with the beeping of the phone in Yoshiya's pocket—not because of the message, just a text from the first-years, Asou and Kuzumi, confirming that they'd taken attendance for the dorm the night before, but because somehow that one tiny sound made Fujishima jump high enough to bash his knee into the bottom of their table. The last of the pound cake tumbled out of his hand and landed on the floor, icing side down. Yoshiya wasn't sure the younger boy had ever looked so devastated.

"Oh, Reiichi-sempai—I'm so sorry!" Fujishima cried, leaping up from the table with a fistful of napkins and nearly overturning his glass of chocolate, too. "It was so expensive…I'll—I'll eat it anyway!"

Reiichi frowned, reaching out one long arm to pinch Fujishima's cheek. "Nonsense. And as I already told you, that subject is closed—you're my guest, and I won't hear another word about it." With a last little shake, Reiichi released him and got to his feet, stretching luxuriously over his head. "Besides, we were hardly finished. You still haven't tried the ice cream truffles—they pack gelato into a chocolate shell and then refreeze them. The Amaretto is to die for." With a little smile over his shoulder, Reiichi waltzed toward the counter, twirling his fedora around the tip of one finger.

Yoshiya shook his head. It would never occur to Reiichi to get down on the floor of a shop and clean up something he'd spilled—but it occurred to Fujishima, and Yoshiya slid out of his chair to help, studying his face as he wiped up the splattered butterscotch icing. Fujishima looked preoccupied and a little pale, and Yoshiya recalled how jumpy he'd been all morning whenever his phone buzzed, like it was set to electric shock instead of vibrate. He had a fair idea who Fujishima might be avoiding—still, he couldn't help wondering if the younger boy was remembering what he'd remembered, with a jolt of uncertainty, when he slid his hand into his pocket for the phone and caught the corner of a battered square of paper with his thumb.

Fujishima had been so distraught yesterday that Yoshiya had never found the heart to bring it up—his father's brusque departure, the liability of the unsigned form in his pocket. But aside from the cake fumble, he seemed much calmer today, and he'd been having a good time, laughing and playing along with Reiichi all morning. If there was a less painful time to broach the subject, perhaps this was it. Yoshiya considered his approach as they slid back into their chairs and Fujishima returned to his drinking chocolate, lips pursed around the cookie straw.

The night before, somewhere between cajoling Fujishima out of his sopping wet jeans and giving up on getting him to eat anything but ice cream for dinner, Yoshiya had come to a realization: he was out of the habit of dealing with people one on one, without Reiichi as a buffer. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say he was badly out of practice at reading other people; it was Reiichi he had been playing emotional chess with all these years, Reiichi with whom he recognized every opening, every gambit, every tactical retreat. Trying to read Fujishima was more like trying to predict the course of play in Uno: the color and direction could change at any moment, and half the time Yoshiya felt like he'd been skipped altogether.

He was sorely tempted to wait for Reiichi to come back to the table, or perhaps discuss it with him alone first and then approach Fujishima as a united front—but much though he wished otherwise, this was a private matter, and Yoshiya wasn't the type to share other people's secrets. Unlike someone who was currently leaning over the counter, indicating exactly which Amaretto truffle he wanted. Reluctantly, Yoshiya cleared his throat.

"Fujishima," he began, as mildly as he knew how. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Fujishima winced. "I know what you're going to say, Okuno-sempai. It's like—no matter what Reiichi says, this is a nice store, and I need to be more careful about not shot-putting my pound cake…"

"No," Yoshiya broke in, and then paused. "Well—I mean, that's probably wise, but…never mind that. What I actually wanted to talk about was…"

Yoshiya almost lost his nerve when Fujishima wiped a hand across his mouth, unknowingly leaving a dollop of chocolate on his cheek. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the previous night, and for a moment he considered just letting it go, putting this off for a few more hours—but this was a legal issue, a _safety_ issue, and shirking responsibility was not in his nature. Yoshiya steeled himself and met Fujishima's eyes.

"It's about your living situation," he said gently. Instantly he could tell Fujishima had stiffened, every muscle in his body suddenly, unnaturally still—but he hadn't lost his composure, so Yoshiya pressed on, keeping his own expression neutral. Maybe he could keep Fujishima calm by staying calm himself, some emotional parallel to leading by example. "I spoke to your father yesterday, before he boarded the plane…"

Yoshiya stopped again, staring at Fujishima's hand slowly fisting in one of the leftover napkins. He was struck by a memory from the night before, the way Fujishima tensed just before he gave into the tears, buckled as though his legs were on the verge of giving out. All at once he realized that this wasn't calm—it was the calm before the storm, and he was a few ill-chosen words from unleashing a torrent. Yoshiya opted for a strategic retreat, backpedaling as quickly as he could.

"You don't have to make a decision yet. I just wanted to—"

But apparently those were exactly the wrong words—Fujishima blinked a few times, crumpled the napkin in his fist, and the next thing Yoshiya knew he was in tears, his face buried in the crook of his elbow, the panda backpack shaking as the sobs burst out of him. Yoshiya stared at him, entirely lost. He fumbled in desperation for the other boy's clenched hand.

"Fujishima—no, that's—I…I'm sorry. You don't have to do anything—"

If they hadn't been the center of attention before, they certainly were now—Yoshiya could feel a dozen eyes on the back of his neck, every one of the fashionable, well-bred patrons wondering what monstrous thing he'd done to set his companion bawling. Yoshiya would have liked to know that himself. His instinct was to grab Fujishima and run, horrified to be making a scene like this—but he couldn't move, petrified by the thought that anything he did might make it worse. If there was worse than this. Yoshiya had never considered himself a cruel person, but he was going to have to rethink that if he kept up this appalling streak of making Fujishima cry.

He was more relieved than he would have liked to admit to feel a hand settle on his shoulder, a familiar laugh ringing in his ear.

"Really, Yoshiya," Reiichi chided as he slid his brimming tray onto the table, his expression somewhere between sympathetic and amused. "You couldn't play nice for two minutes?"

Fujishima pulled his hand away, scrubbing at his face and trying in vain to stem the tears. But luckily it was out of Yoshiya's incompetent hands now, and Reiichi was in full Kashiwagi mode, doing five things at once: summoning an attendant to box his just-purchased haul, arranging for delivery from a confectioner that didn't deliver, somehow diffusing all the worry and curiosity directed their way with nothing but a self-assured smile. Then, in perhaps the least dignified move Yoshiya had ever seen from him, Reiichi grabbed the empty blueberry skewer and chocolate-coated cookie straw and stabbed them through the hearts of two desserts—a marzipan rose and a bonbon the size of a beanbag—and raced with Fujishima out into the courtyard beyond the enormous front window, the impaled _quelque chose_ waving in his fist. Yoshiya sighed as he stared after them, utterly relieved to lay down his king.

Fujishima was a wild card, and he had never beaten Reiichi at Uno. Maybe, until he learned the rules of this new game a little better, having a buffer wasn't such a bad idea. More than anything, as he watched them through his reflection in the glass, Reiichi pulling a soundless protest from Fujishima as he lifted the pilfered desserts to his mouth as if to take a bite out of each, Yoshiya was just glad he hadn't broken anything Reiichi couldn't fix.

If he never made Fujishima cry again, it would be too soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six  
**

Takara was totally mortified to have burst into tears in the middle of a cake shop—and not just any cake shop, but apparently like the Kashiwagis' private dessert depot, where everyone was rich and good-looking and even the two-year-old at the next table was too well-mannered to cry in public. Takara hadn't even known he still had that in him. Maybe the worst part was that he hadn't gotten to finish his glass of drinking chocolate, even though Reiichi had ordered it sweet just for him. He'd loved every mouthful of CocoaBella's rich, moist cakes and confections—and mourned the lost few bites of escapist pound cake—but this was goodbye: he was never going to be able to set foot in that store again.

Luckily, the next place on Reiichi's list was so awesome he forgot the whole incident five minutes in.

When they'd all clambered back into the town car, Okuno-sempai crunching himself up against the far window like he was paying penance for something, and Reiichi asked what he'd like to do next, Takara hadn't thought very hard before mumbling _games_. He'd been thinking about…well, whatever—but the entertainment center Reiichi took him to was nothing like a regular arcade. In fact, it reminded him more of an amusement park shrunk down to the size of a department store—and if it lacked some of the cheesy, neon-lights-and-funnel-cake atmosphere of the carnivals he'd been to as a kid, it more than made up for it with games he'd never imagined, absolutely no lines, and a full service wine bar (with a bartender who could also make a mean strawberry milkshake). Reiichi didn't even have to get them wristbands or anything—he'd just flashed his black AmEx at the door.

Takara wanted to lose himself in this place and never come out. It had a miniature roller coaster (modeled, Reiichi told him, off the one on top of a casino in Las Vegas), a human maze that took up an entire floor (and since Reiichi and Okuno couldn't agree on a strategy for solving it, Takara briefly worried they really _would_ lose themselves in there), pool tables, poker tables, bowling and basketball and a track on the lowest level where, from the upper floors, he could look down and watch people racing mini motorcycles, their knees sticking out like spread-legged grasshoppers as they leaned into the turns. Reiichi promised they'd join the race at the top of the hour, provided Takara had finished his milkshake by then. Apparently Kashiwagi Senior was the reigning mini motorcycle champ in the family, crackly old knees and all.

"Fujishima! It's hovering! Quick, knock it back to my side!"

Takara blinked, pulling himself away from the mini motocross event going on three floors below. For the last ten minutes, he'd been helping Reiichi cheat at air hockey, bumping the floating puck back to him whenever it got stuck in the middle of the table. They were up 5-4, but Okuno was holding his own pretty well, even two on one—then again, Takara wasn't that good, and he knew he'd scored at least one of Okuno's points himself. Reiichi had reflexes like a professional goalie, but he was totally unprepared for Takara's mid-table friendly fire rocket shot. He swung the mallet he'd stolen from another table and then got out of the way as the puck zinged back and forth between the two end zones like an angry pinball, Reiichi and Okuno matching each other shot for shot.

Actually, they'd been pretty evenly matched at everything—at bowling, at darts, at navigating the insane miniature golf course one floor up that had an actual watermill wheel on the eleventh hole. Okuno had declined to ride the roller coaster, so technically Takara supposed that was Reiichi's victory, and had followed the older boy's lead in making faces at Okuno every time the coaster shot through the turns. And Reiichi had won the pool game in the end—but come to think of it, he'd cheated at that too, leaning up to blow in Okuno's ear as he took aim at the eight ball and making him scratch so badly he nearly tore the felt off the table. Ultimately, Takara decided, Reiichi wasn't necessarily better at most games, but he was a lot better at winning. Proved again by the victorious _clank_ of the puck sliding into Okuno's goal one last time and the table hissing as it powered down, Reiichi holding out a gleeful hand for a high five.

"All right! Well done, my exceptional minion." Takara made a face at him, but Reiichi just laughed, crooking his fingers in a _give me_ gesture. "Victory sip!"

Takara handed over the milkshake—they had gotten two straws so he and Reiichi could share, but admittedly he'd been hogging most of it, which was probably why his stomach felt a little sloshy. Though he'd been looking forward to it, he wasn't sure anymore if he'd be able to ride a mini motorcycle without rolling over on the turns like a bloated water balloon.

Reiichi took a drink, the straw making the telltale slurping noises that meant the milkshake was almost extinct. He twirled the bendy plastic around his finger as he shot their opponent a teasing smile.

"Come on, Yoshiya. There has to be _one_ game here that you can win."

Okuno looked like he couldn't imagine anything he cared less about. In fact, he wasn't even looking at Reiichi; he was staring at Takara with that same wary attentiveness that had sort of been weirding him out ever since CocoaBella. "Do you need another milkshake, Fujishima?" Okuno asked as Reiichi handed back the mostly empty glass. "Or something to eat?"

Takara tried not to gag at the thought of putting anything else in his stomach. "Uh…no. I'm fine, Okuno-sempai. I'll just…finish this one off."

Okuno had been a little overly solicitous all afternoon, and Takara wondered if his meltdown at the cake shop had scarred the older boy for life, but was more immediately worried that Okuno would buy him like six milkshakes to try to assuage his guilt or whatever, and then Takara would have to drink those milkshakes, and then he'd vomit, and the guilt spiral would start all over again. He wanted to apologize, to tell Okuno that nothing that had happened at CocoaBella was really his fault, but he couldn't think of a way to bring it up without making things more awkward. With a sort of forced smile at his sempai, he tipped the glass to slide the last sip of milkshake into his mouth, hoping his stomach could handle it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, he didn't have to find out—the straws sabotaged him at the last second, sliding down into his face, and he choked, a few drops of milkshake escaping down his chin. He caught them with his wrist, licked them up again before they reached the sleeve of his new shirt—but apparently he'd committed some big taboo, because he looked up again to find Okuno staring at him, his forehead furrowed like he was fighting a headache. Takara frowned. It wasn't that big a deal—just because Okuno had never spilled anything in his entire life…but then, he'd dropped the pound cake, too. Was there a strikes system? How many violations did he get before they dropped him off at Chuck E. Cheese with the other serial mess-makers?

Reiichi was just laughing, though, sliding around the table to pat Okuno's shoulder. "Just a minor accident. Don't make that face, Yoshiya—you'll give him the wrong idea." He winked at Takara, though why Takara had no idea. "Why don't you pick another game, Fujishima? We'll get some napkins at the bar. Besides," he added, intertwining his fingers with Okuno's and then taking a step back, pulling the taller boy along with him, "you still owe me a treat for winning."

"What do you want?" Okuno asked, not even trying to get out of it as he let Reiichi lead the way backward to the bar, though Takara was sure he could make a pretty solid case for cheating.

Reiichi shrugged. "I'm sure I'll think of something." He waved at Takara over his shoulder, but then they were too far away to hear what they were saying anymore, weaving effortlessly through the maze of gaming tables. How Reiichi could navigate backward while holding Okuno's hand and not bang right into a chair or a foosball table, he'd never understand—but then, even if there was an accident, they'd probably just end up in the tango. It was sort of disgusting and impressive at the same time.

Takara shook it off, and then, since he hadn't seen a tray or a dish return or anything, tucked his empty milkshake glass a little guiltily behind the leg of the air hockey table and set off across the floor. Past the forest of Ping-Pong tables, he peered into side rooms set off for racquetball, croquette, and something that was like life-sized skeeball, where three boys a few years older than him were high-fiving each other over what looked like a very middling score. One of them stared at Takara as he passed, and Takara tensed under the scrutiny, a little self-conscious since the milkshake accident—but he forgot those losers in a heartbeat when he reached the room at the end, a gleaming basketball court with a full rack of basketballs so new there wasn't even any wear on the logos.

Takara had never been great at basketball—he was short, and somehow that had been true even when everybody was short because they were second-graders just messing around at the hoops in the park—but like everybody who was short and had played a lot of basketball anyway, there was one thing he'd perfected. He couldn't dribble between his legs, he couldn't really fake, and forget guarding a bigger player unless he wanted to end up on his ass, but he could hit his free throws every time—and not just from the line, but from the edge of the three-point zone where it hit the top of the key. Takara grabbed a ball and dribbled from one hand to the other to warm up, enjoying the feel of the pebbled skin on his palms. Here was something he was actually good at, good enough to impress Reiichi and Okuno when they came back—and then maybe Okuno would stop looking at him like he might burst into tears at any moment. There was no crying in basketball, right? Was that the saying?

He had barely gotten into it, was just starting to feel the satisfying burn that came with every _swish_ , when he heard footsteps on the court behind him. Takara crouched low, dribbled once or twice for show before arcing up and letting loose, the ball plunging into the basket without even touching the backboard. He bit down a smile, knowing from experience how much cooler it would be if he turned around looking ultra-casual, made Reiichi and Okuno think he didn't cheer a little inside every time that shot went in.

But it wasn't Reiichi and Okuno who had come into the court behind him—it was the three rich punks from the skeeball game, all of them looking at him with condescending smiles while the ringleader gave him a slow clap. "Hey—that's a pretty nice shot. Especially for somebody like you."

Takara felt himself bristle, wondering just was _somebody like him_ was supposed to mean. Somebody short? Somebody who didn't have money oozing out of every pore? The boy who was apparently top dog, just as slimy as the jerks he'd run into occasionally when Kiyo—when he'd hit the arcade, but better dressed with a red polo shirt and slick combover, moved in a few more steps, close enough for Takara to gag on the cologne he'd apparently bathed in.

"You look kind of lonely. How about we keep you company for a while?" the boy said.

Takara glared at him. _Keep you company_ —yeah, right. He'd dealt with this kind before, always trying to cut in line or bully little kids off the pinball machines. Takara knew he wasn't as dignified as Reiichi-sempai, or as cool and powerful as Okuno-sempai, but did he really look like that much of a pushover? He snagged another ball from the rack, staking his claim.

"You can wait your turn," he snapped. Apparently rich jackasses were just as shameless as broke ones—and come to think of it, hadn't these been the guys trying to coax him into joining their pool game earlier, when he'd wandered away from Okuno and Reiichi's long endgame? Man, they'd really taken him for a mark.

The leader clicked his tongue, moving in until he was all up in Takara's space. "Aw, c'mon. Don't be like that. This doesn't really seem like your game. How about we get out of here, find somewhere a little more private?"

_Private_ , yeah—like a dark alley, no doubt, wherever rich kids took people they wanted to mug. Takara could handle himself in a scrap, if it came to that, but he was having too much fun to get into it today. Plus, the joke was on these losers—the panda backpack Reiichi had given him didn't have any money in it at all, just a few boxes of Hello Panda and a bunch of chocolate panda-head lollipops that might have come with the bag, he wasn't sure. Takara shrugged the guy's arm off his shoulders and took a step back, situating himself at the top of the key.

"Actually, this is my game," he replied, taking a deep breath. He was at the limit of his range, but clearly these guys weren't going to back off without a show—Takara took careful aim, ran forward a few steps and then jumped back, shooting his free throw on the fadeaway. It was still a work in progress, and Takara had to bite down on a whoop when the ball rolled the rim twice and then dropped in, the best fadeaway shot he'd ever made. The boy whistled, but Takara could tell he was being mocked because it sounded more like a catcall than anything else.

"Fancy stuff. I bet that's not all you're good at," he said—and what the hell was that supposed to mean? Takara was considering showing the punk exactly how good he was at kicking out someone's knee, but a voice from the doorway stopped him before he'd more than lifted his foot.

"Not at all—he's also quite good at the hook shot and having very powerful friends." Takara turned his head to find Reiichi leaning against the door with a smile, though Okuno, at his shoulder, looked decidedly grim-faced. Reiichi clapped as Takara's eyes found his. "Excellently done, Fujishima. Did Asou teach you that shot? We may have to put a bell on you, though—Yoshiya was afraid we'd misplaced you once and for all."

Apparently Reiichi was far more impressive than his fadeaway—the three jerkoffs who'd been lurking around Takara backed up fast, the leader running a hand through his greasy hair. "Kashiwagi. You, uh…you know each other?"

Reiichi gave a little laugh that didn't sound all that friendly. "Fujishima is my guest. You know what a guest is, Sato—I assume that's the only way you could be here, after that failed merger gutted your father's company. Such a shame to hear he lost the yacht." Then he turned back to Takara and beckoned with one hand, reminding him of a lucky cat. "Fujishima, come on. It's time to suit up for the motorcycle race." Then, glancing at the boy over his shoulder, he added, "We'll wait for you in the locker room, Yoshiya."

"Why is Okuno-sempai staying behind?" Takara asked as Reiichi led him down the hallway toward the elevators. If he craned his head, he could just see Okuno blocking the door out of the court, the three rich jerks trapped on the other side.

Reiichi flicked his hand. "Oh, he just wants to have a little talk with them about etiquette. Nothing to worry about. Now let's go—Grandfather keeps three sets of racing jackets here, and if we hurry we can stick Yoshiya with the purple one."

Takara wasn't sure whether to believe Reiichi, as a general rule, but in the end he decided he didn't care. Those guys deserved what was coming to them, and anyway Okuno probably wasn't going to approach it the way Takara would have, which boiled down to kicking them in the shins. Canvas shoes weren't really the right footwear for that, anyway.

"Can you believe those jerks were trying to kick me off the court?" he asked as they stepped into the glass elevator. Reiichi shot him a startled look. Then he broke into a laugh, wrapping an arm around Takara's back and pulling him into a hug.

"You're so cute I could eat you with a demitasse spoon," Reiichi told him, and even though Takara wasn't sure what that meant, he laughed too, and closed his eyes for just a second, enjoying where he was—not because of where he wasn't, not because he was running from something, but just because he was having fun, and he liked Reiichi and he liked Okuno, and nothing could be better than mini motorcycles.

Except maybe the heaping pile of French fries Reiichi bought him when he won.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Reiichi was a little in love with Yoshiya's kitchen. Perhaps it was just transitive, but the room always made him feel exceptionally warm, probably because it put him in mind of all those lazy mornings after he'd spent the night, daydreaming in one of the high chairs while Yoshiya made eggs Benedict or hand-rolled croissants, their eyes meeting across the counter in a way that felt intimate, special, like this was a space just for the two of them. Of course, now he also had the wonderfully fun memory of feeding Fujishima bites of creatively garnished French toast, watching that little crease between Yoshiya's eyebrows get deeper and deeper as it became clear neither of them had time to waste on the strawberries. But maybe the thing Reiichi loved most about this kitchen was that he had been staying over with the Okunos long enough now for his own tastes to influence the family's shopping habits, which meant it was a rare day when he poked around and couldn't find the type of brie and stone-ground crackers he preferred, white beech mushrooms or the makings of a crispy _flammekueche_. But tonight he was on the hunt for something specific: comfort food.

Reiichi stretched languidly over his head, rolling up on his tiptoes to examine the top shelf of the cabinet. Behind him at the breakfast bar, Fujishima was messing with his phone—playing a game or something, Reiichi theorized, glancing back at the younger boy in his graphic T-shirt and artfully ripped jeans, his hair still wet from the shower. Yoshiya had of course been a gentleman—Yoshiya was _always_ a gentleman—and let Reiichi and Fujishima have the first showers, Fujishima in the lavender-themed guest bathroom and Reiichi in the bathroom upstairs that was home to all of Sawa's lovely body washes. Reiichi preferred long soaks to showers anyway, so it was easy to beat Fujishima out of the bathroom, the linchpin in his plan to ensure Yoshiya came to bed smelling like brown sugar again. But the end result of all that chivalry was that Yoshiya was still in the shower, and that gave Reiichi unfettered access to the kitchen, not to mention ample time to decide exactly what he wanted for dinner and the best way to get it.

The day out with Fujishima had been an absolute ball. Reiichi couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed so hard, and already he was imagining how he might embellish the story of the confrontation at the entertainment center (adorable, oblivious Fujishima at the mercy of three—no, eight guys with less-than-honorable intentions, and then the dramatic entrance by Yoshiya, riding to the rescue in a rippling silk shirt and tie…he'd leave out his own part in the story, because it was much more fun to spread gossip about other people than about himself). If that was what a day with Fujishima was like, Reiichi was never giving him up, not even to Kiyomine.

Of course, a good part of the fun had been getting Yoshiya's goat, taunting him with a panoply of ever more extravagant _bonnes bouches_ —but in truth, Reiichi was at his limit, and all he wanted now was something simple to settle his stomach. Still, that was no reason to give the game away without a little token resistance. He'd get the cakes CocoaBella had delivered out of the refrigerator; that would put Yoshiya on the offensive for sure. Reiichi smiled as he traced his thumb down a package of udon. Surrendering to Yoshiya could be fun in its own way…he was always so accommodating when he thought he had to talk Reiichi around to something.

The water turned off in the bathroom upstairs, and Reiichi shut the cabinet with a snap, turning back to face the breakfast bar. The udon—that would do it. Yoshiya made the best miso udon Reiichi had ever tasted, probably because he made it exactly as Reiichi wanted it on any given day. Surely he'd do the same for Fujishima. After the commotion at the cake shop, Reiichi had a feeling Yoshiya would do _anything_ for the boy currently parked at his kitchen counter, pouting at his smartphone.

Reiichi leaned back on his hands and tipped his head against the cabinet door, studying their houseguest with a little smile. From the moment he'd made his grand entrance at Souryou's dormitory, Fujishima Takara had turned everyone's head—Kiyomine's, naturally, and poor, goofy Aritomo, though of course he'd never had a chance, and even Reiichi's, if not for quite the same reason. Reiichi knew a little something about being the center of attention, too, and if half of that came from money and pedigree, the other half he'd earned by learning early how to dress and carry himself and what to say to get the reaction he wanted. But he was fascinated by Fujishima, who seemed to stir things up without even realizing it. He was like a whirlwind, a moody, petulant, contrary, delightful little dust devil who could go from sunny smiles to thunder and driving rain in about three seconds—as he had now, it seemed, punching his finger forcefully against his cell phone's glass face. Reiichi wondered what he was deleting with such gusto.

Even Yoshiya, his calm, collected Yoshiya who was usually immune to every trick in the book, had been flustered by the unpredictable Fujishima from the very beginning—and flustered was a good look on him, one Reiichi wished he could provoke a little more often himself. If Fujishima could only learn to harness that power he held over other people, he'd be unstoppable. But somehow, whether it was the disruptive elements in his class or that idiot cousin of Reiichi's that he roomed with, Fujishima could only ever seem to do things the hard way.

Reiichi shook his head, and Fujishima looked up at him suspiciously, as if trying to gauge whether he was being watched—which he was. Reiichi crooked his fingertips in a little wave. He wondered if he should read Fujishima in on the udon master plan. Unlike him, Fujishima wasn't an old hand at wheedling Yoshiya into doing what he wanted, and it would be a shame if Yoshiya caught on too quickly—then again, _not_ cluing him in risked Fujishima and his sweet tooth diving right into the CocoaBella cakes, and then Reiichi would be up sick all night with the equivalent of a chocolate hangover. He hadn't made up his mind yet when the phone in Fujishima's hand started to ring.

Fujishima jumped, his fingers clenching around the green protective case as he stared down at the glowing screen. Reiichi was too far away to read the caller's name, but he knew at once that it wasn't Kiyomine—he'd come to recognize his cousin's ringtone, or at least the first few bars of it, which had played over and over that morning before Fujishima got tired of silencing it and finally put his phone on vibrate. Reiichi hadn't understood at the time why he didn't just shut the phone off altogether, close Kiyomine out of the fitting room and the town car and all the fun they were having on their big day out—but maybe he'd been waiting for this call, whoever this was. Fujishima glared at him like he was deciding whether Reiichi was the type to eavesdrop—and really, where had Fujishima gotten such a poor opinion of him?—and then grabbed the phone and slid out of his chair, answering the call with a frown. Reiichi only heard a few words before he stepped into the hallway and out of earshot.

"Dad. Hey. What time is it there?"

Reiichi huffed, drumming his fingers on the counter. Now he'd have to calculate how long he needed to loiter in the kitchen before he could go in search of Yoshiya and just _happen_ to overhear Fujishima's conversation. Casual surveillance was so time-consuming. He stuck his head into the refrigerator to consider breakfast options for the next morning (maybe Yoshiya could make omelets using the prosciutto and crescenza from the swan?), but he'd barely pushed past the artisan cake boxes before Fujishima's raised voice pulled his attention to the upstairs hallway.

"No! Dad, I said—I told you I'd handle it!"

Reiichi frowned, following the angry words into the hall. When he reached the foot of the stairs, he could see Fujishima pacing on the second floor, his momentum halting abruptly as he grabbed the wooden banister and squeezed his eyes shut. Reiichi felt something lurch in him at the look on the younger boy's face. The shouting had caught Yoshiya's attention, too—Reiichi could see him lurking in the bathroom doorway, one hand sliding through his wet hair, his sharp eyes fixed on the boy at the railing. If Fujishima realized he had an audience, he was too focused on the phone to show it.

"Look, you said I could…no! I told you I don't want it to be Kim!"

Fujishima shook his head hard, too hard to be disagreeing with someone ten thousand kilometers away. Reiichi recognized that gesture. It was the way he shook his head when he couldn't bear what he was hearing, when he wanted to chase the words like drops of water from his ears. Cautiously, he ascended the stairs, pausing on the landing between the first and second floor to glance at Yoshiya again. He looked concerned, but rather than confusion his clenched jaw told Reiichi he was holding back hard on his temper—and certainly, he wouldn't be mad at Fujishima for whatever was going on. At his father, then? Reiichi knew Yoshiya had talked to Fujishima Kou before final boarding for his flight to Ethiopia, but when Yoshiya hadn't said much about it, Reiichi had assumed that meant there wasn't much to say. An assumption he was questioning as Fujishima pushed back from the banister and threw up his empty hand—giving something up or throwing something away, Reiichi couldn't tell.

"What do you even care? I'm not your problem anymore, remember? I'm not anyone's problem!"

Whatever that meant to those on the upper floor, apparently it was the last straw—Reiichi could see Yoshiya's expression hardening as he switched into protective mode, stepping out into the hallway and extending one stiff hand.

"Fujishima. Give me the phone."

Fujishima jerked back out of reach. "I'm fine, Okuno-sempai," he snapped, and then, into the phone: "I wasn't talking to you! No, I'm—I can stay wherever I want. Look, if you're gonna be gone, just be gone, okay?" he shouted, and Reiichi wondered if it was the echo under the vaulted ceilings that made those words sound so raw, like they'd been ripped out of him. Yoshiya took another step and then hesitated, as if he realized at the same moment as Reiichi that he'd boxed Fujishima in at the top of the stairs.

"Fujishima—" Yoshiya started, and through the pounding in his ears Reiichi heard himself speaking too, his voice a little hoarse around the heart in his throat.

"Yoshiya, watch out, he's—"

But Fujishima wasn't listening to either of them, his eyes shut tight as he wrenched away from Yoshiya's outstretched hand, pressed the phone to his ear with blistering force. "Would everyone just leave me alone—!" Then his heel slipped over the lip of the top step, and suddenly he was falling, careening backward with his eyes wide and his arm thrown out to the side to catch himself against the wall, the phone clattering out of his hand and skittering across the second-floor hallway. Reiichi felt the fear go through him like a bolt of static electricity—but it was all right, because Yoshiya was right there, reaching out for him with both hands, shouting something Reiichi wasn't hearing, fingers raking over Fujishima's arm, Yoshiya had him—

Yoshiya didn't have him. Fujishima's elbow banged into the wall and then he was tumbling headlong down the stairs, bashing his head on at least one or two before he slammed into Reiichi at about waist height and his momentum smashed them both back into the banister, the carved newel on top of one baluster driving like a fist into his spine. Reiichi gasped as one of Fujishima's sharp little elbows sunk into his ribs, too—the bruised one, judging by his answering yelp. Reiichi looked up through a haze of pain and surprise to find Yoshiya staring at them from the top step, breathing hard, his eyes a little wild behind his glasses like he'd been one second from throwing himself down after them if it looked like they were going over the banister. Fujishima bent forward clutching his head and Reiichi pried himself away from the wooden rail with his lower back screaming, though not as loudly as the phone abandoned in the upstairs hall.

" _Takara? Takara, what happened? Are you all right? Hey, answer me!"_

Fujishima groaned, twisting far enough to blink up at his human barricade with wet eyes. "I'm so sorry, Reiichi-sempai. Are you okay?"

"I think you're directing that question to the wrong person," Reiichi replied, scrutinizing Fujishima's tousled hair and the hand he'd clapped over the trickle of blood under his nose. It was probably nothing to worry about—nosebleeds seemed to be the way Fujishima's body coped with stress of any kind, and this one looked pretty minor—but he was a little concerned about the enthusiasm with which the younger boy had battered his head on the stairs. And here Reiichi had always heard cats were supposed to land on their feet.

He glanced up at Yoshiya again, threw him a little wave to show that they were all in one piece—or close to it. Yoshiya hardly looked reassured, and already Reiichi could see the wheels of self-recrimination turning in his head, but at least he relaxed enough to turn away and pick up the forgotten phone, Fujishima Kou's panicked voice fading as Yoshiya pressed it to his ear.

"Mr. Fujishima. This is Okuno—we spoke yesterday, from the airport. Yes, he's fine." His eyes locked on Fujishima as he spoke again, his voice remarkably calm for the agitation Reiichi could read in his face. "As for the other matter, I'll handle it from here. Yes—I understand the urgency. Consider it taken care of." Then he hung up, a little more sharply than Reiichi would have expected from someone who usually had himself so well under control. He'd been dead on, it seemed, musing that Fujishima was one of the few people who could rattle him.

Reiichi glanced at both of them, then crossed his arms and leaned into the wall, the better to assume a command posture without aggravating his aching spine.

"I think it's time someone told me what this is all about."

Ten minutes later, he was still waiting for an answer, seated next to Fujishima on the living room couch while Yoshiya settled into the armchair across the coffee table and raked a hand through his still damp hair. Except for a mumbled _thanks_ when Yoshiya handed him a tissue, Fujishima hadn't said a word since they all trooped down the stairs, and he'd curled up in the corner of the black sectional with his arms around his raised knee, as far as he could get from Reiichi without crawling over the back of the sofa. Reiichi knew better than to take it personally. Yoshiya, for his part, had been procrastinating, fetching ice packs for Fujishima's head and Reiichi's back (which was a Godsend, but nevertheless…), and once when he left the room Reiichi heard him rummaging in the front coat closet, for some unfathomable reason. But it seemed like even Yoshiya had run out of ways to stall. With a heavy sigh, he reached into his pocket and drew out a square of paper, straightening each crease with his thumb as he unfolded it slowly onto the coffee table.

"I'm sorry, Fujishima. I picked this up yesterday, but…I wasn't sure how to tell you that."

Yoshiya slid the paper across the polished dark wood. Reiichi took it all in at a glance: Fujishima's name and his father's signature, and the empty guardian line. And suddenly everything about this made sense—not just the argument in the hallway upstairs, but all the pieces he'd been puzzling over, how tense Yoshiya had been since the night before, the anger on his face when he'd reached out to take the phone. Why Fujishima looked so sad every time Reiichi tried to ask him where he wanted to live when school started. He couldn't imagine how much it would hurt to think you were that alone, that unwanted. And Kiyomine—oh, he understood that too, in a dimension that had eluded him before: the way Fujishima must have quivered to hear Kiyomine put someone else above him, to his face, while he was carrying this in his pocket. How shortsighted Reiichi had been to assume it would blow over, as their fights had always blown over. This wasn't a fight—this was a wound, the kind that became a scar if you left it alone. He could only hope Kiyomine was perceptive enough to know the difference.

Fujishima reached out and dragged the guardianship form toward him, his fingers unnaturally still against the crinkled paper. "Oh," he said, and that one little sound seemed to take everything he had, barely a whisper in the silence of the house. "I thought…um. It doesn't matter, I guess."

Yoshiya braced his chin on his latticed hands, leaning forward as if trying to catch those elusive eyes. "Who is Kim?" he asked gently, but Fujishima flinched anyway. Reiichi had almost forgotten that already, the person Fujishima vehemently _didn't want_ —for what, it was easy enough to guess now. The boy at the other end of the couch shrugged, staring down at his lap as he picked imaginary lint off his brand-new jeans.

"I thought you might remember his name, Okuno-sempai—it's on all my dad's photography books."

It was amazing how Fujishima managed to say so much and so little with those few words. Reiichi wanted to reach out to him, to wrap an arm over his shoulders or ruffle a hand through his hair, but it wasn't the moment yet, he could tell. Fujishima was still closed to him, to both of them. Yoshiya rubbed a hand across his forehead, obviously fighting a headache, but he soldiered on, his face pinched like he was determined to get through this even if it killed him. Which it might, Reiichi thought, if Fujishima started crying—he wasn't sure Yoshiya's heart could take that twice in one day.

"Is there…someone else?" Yoshiya pressed. "A family friend, or…Ms. Takayama or Ms. Uryuu's parents, perhaps?"

Fujishima jerked his hand back from the paper as if it had burned him, scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "I don't—" he started, and then cut himself off, staring off over Yoshiya's shoulder into the darkness of the front hall. "I don't know," he finished after a moment, his voice much more subdued, but Reiichi thought he could hear the words Fujishima hadn't said just as clearly, the desperate _I don't want that_ that spoke to some other tragedy, some other loneliness for which he and Yoshiya didn't know the story. Though it had never occurred to him before, Reiichi found himself wondering suddenly if maybe Fujishima had been lonely for a long time, longer than he'd been alone. If maybe that was the reason it seemed like he and Kiyomine had become thick as thieves so quickly, constant companions before they were even friends. If that was the reason he couldn't bear to listen to Kiyomine's ringtone even once, and also the reason he couldn't just turn off his phone.

Yoshiya sat back in his chair, at a stalemate, his gaze shifting to catch Reiichi's over the starkness of the half-empty form. Reiichi watched him too, running through their options in his mind. Part of him leapt at the chance to adopt Fujishima into the Kashiwagis, but he knew his own relatives well enough to know that wasn't a decision to be made lightly. It wasn't a problem of approval—Grandfather would of course do anything he asked—but it was family policy to keep everyone they loved, or even liked well, as far away from the old man as possible, since even born-and-bred Kashiwagis could only handle him in short bursts. Honestly, the Christmas trip to Las Vegas had been almost more than Reiichi could take, and if he hadn't been winning so much money at roulette, he'd have commandeered Grandfather's private plane two days in and set a course for Yoshiya's.

There were a few other choices, none he liked any better. Reiichi was sure his own parents would be willing to take up the mantle, but there were certain strings that came with that—Fujishima would absolutely be expected to get his grades up, and to participate in at least one club or school service organization. And all that aside, Reiichi couldn't even bear the thought of broaching that subject with Tsukasa, who had been so prickly and unpredictable lately and didn't seem like he was in the right frame of mind to welcome someone to the family. Which left Masaya, who would no doubt be thrilled…too thrilled, perhaps. Besides, if he was going to consign poor Fujishima to Masaya's disreputable clutches, Reiichi would have to sue for custody as soon as he was legally an adult, and a Kashiwagi civil war…well, that could only end in devastation on a national scale.

Fujishima still hadn't spoken, leaning heavily into the crease of the couch—Reiichi wondered if he really couldn't think of anyone, or if he was just shutting this out, as if by not answering he could erase the question altogether. Yoshiya looked like he was reaching the end of his rope, the silence wearing away his resolve. But Reiichi couldn't really blame Fujishima for hesitating. This was so much more than picking someone to be his emergency contact, someone to make decisions for him if he was ever in the hospital—those things that had Yoshiya in knots. It was about who would get a call if Fujishima ever got in trouble at school, who he'd get sent back to on holidays when the dorm closed, whose permission he'd need to get for field trips or to work a part-time job or if he ever wanted to skip a week of school to go sightseeing in Marrakesh, which really, everyone should do once. It was about whose address he would have to write on the line marked _Home_ , and whose name belonged next to his on the guardianship form, when even his father couldn't make that decision. It was an unbelievable thing to ask of him.

No, Reiichi decided, sitting up straight and then instantly regretting it when he remembered the contusions on his lower back. _Unbelievable_ wasn't the word. It was _unacceptable_. And hadn't he always been a person who changed the rules when he found them unacceptable (or at the outside, inconvenient)? How could he rightfully call himself an effective dorm president while one of his charges was suffering under these draconian regulations? It wasn't like Fujishima's father had ever been around to sign forms—what had they done to this point? And then it was all so simple, and Reiichi smiled. Gingerly, so as not to do any more harm to either of them, he slid an arm around Fujishima's shoulders and pulled the younger boy in until he could press their heads together, wincing just a little to feel the swelling in his temple.

"Don't worry. I have a better idea."

Fujishima blinked at him. Across the coffee table, Yoshiya was blinking too, though the furrow between his brows meant he was less confused and more suspicious. "A better idea than what, Reiichi?" he asked, glancing predictably at the half-finished form on the table. Reiichi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Yoshiya would insist that all the rules and regulations were followed to the letter—luckily, it was a Kashiwagi tradition to write a few new ones in when the occasion suited, and Reiichi was still miles away from exercising the same gross overreach of privilege Masaya had accomplished while he was at Souryou. He had a lot of catching up to do.

"Fujishima," Reiichi began, pulling back far enough to meet his eyes, "have you ever read through the Souryou student regulations handbook?"

Fujishima balked. "Um…I sort of…skimmed it."

That was well within Reiichi's calculations, because no one read the regulations handbook—well, except Yoshiya, since he was usually the one handing out citations and mediating disputes between dorm residents. Reiichi had sort of skimmed it, too, enough to get a sense of the syntax and the numbering system, which was useful when he needed to invent something on the spot and then have it drafted into the official rulebook at a later time. Like now. Admittedly, the only person in the school except Saijou who could have called him on this creative license was sitting across the coffee table, watching him with narrowed eyes, but Reiichi wasn't concerned—Yoshiya's standard operating procedure was to go along with whatever he was saying in public and debate it later when it was just the two of them, by which time Reiichi had generally gotten what he wanted anyway. It was one of Yoshiya's best qualities.

Reiichi pressed a teasing finger into Fujishima's cheek, well below the swelling on his forehead. "Well, then you probably don't know that there's an addendum to the policy regarding official legal guardians that was put in specifically for students in this kind of situation." There would be, anyway—really it was just his tenses that were lying. "In the event where a student's legal guardian is unclear or unavailable, the dorm president can take the place of that student's guardian in all school-related areas."

Yoshiya was giving him that look again, the one that asked if he knew what he was getting into, but Reiichi was an expert at ignoring that look by now. He was much more interested in the look on Fujishima's face—that little bit of wary hopefulness he was working so hard to keep in check.

"Really?" Fujishima asked, one hand fisting unconsciously into his T-shirt. "Are you serious, Reiichi-sempai?"

Reiichi smiled. "Of course. You can't think you're the first student at Souryou who's ever had a problem like this."

Actually, he probably wasn't, and Reiichi wondered absently what had been done for those people—but it was really neither here nor there, because there was something he was driving at, an idea that had sparked from the memory of racing with Fujishima on the mini motorcycle track, the way even Yoshiya couldn't help laughing when Fujishima had tried to feed Reiichi a bite of French toast dunked in boysenberry syrup and then missed, leaving a claret smear down his cheek. Because he liked Fujishima, he really, really liked him, and Yoshiya liked him too, and he didn't want to think about Fujishima being lonely anymore, not if he could help it.

Reiichi leaned over and picked up the form, noting the flash of concern on Fujishima's face. "You will need an official guardian, just for emergencies. But if you can put a name down on this piece of paper—any name at all—I'll take care of everything else, and you'll never have to see this person unless you want to."

Fujishima sank back against the couch, his eyes flickering closed in relief. Reiichi glanced across to find Yoshiya watching him with a knowing expression, one eyebrow arched just enough to convey his opinion of regulations conjured out of thin air—but even so, Reiichi could tell he had relaxed too, and there was just a sliver of a smile tugging at Yoshiya's lips, like even he couldn't help being impressed with the display of verbal funambulism. Reiichi turned back to his companion on the couch as Fujishima sighed.

"Um…Shinomiya Keishi. He's kind of like—my uncle. I think he'd sign it."

"Perfect. We'll get in touch with him right away," Reiichi replied, careful to keep a straight face. "Of course, there is one caveat to the interim guardianship that I forgot to mention."

He felt a little bad watching Fujishima's hopeful expression falter, but really, it was Fujishima's own fault for being so fun to tease. "What's that?" the younger boy asked.

Reiichi leaned forward, bracing his chin on his palm. "Well, I could hardly claim to be supervising you from all the way across the dorm. I'm afraid we'll need to keep you closer than that." He couldn't stop himself from smiling anymore, didn't even try as he reached down and squeezed Fujishima's hand. "Luckily, I just happen to know of a dorm room with a live-in physics tutor, full coffee service twice a day, and a private bedroom with an extremely comfortable, totally unoccupied queen bed. Well, it will be unoccupied," Reiichi amended, ignoring the look Yoshiya shot him, "as soon as we modify the sleeping arrangements."

It wasn't the point, of course, but Reiichi was definitely not denying the allure of snuggling up with Yoshiya for the foreseeable future. Though he would have to give some careful thought to what kind of shampoo they had at the dorm right now.

Fujishima blinked once, twice, his eyes a little too bright as he looked between Reiichi and Yoshiya. "Wait—you mean I'd…I'd get to live with you guys?"

"I'm afraid those are the rules," Reiichi told him with a shrug—and then laughed outright as Fujishima hugged him around the waist, though it turned into a gasp when his spine threatened to snap in half. It was worth it, though, even if he had another bruise, even though it didn't take much for Fujishima to start crying again and Yoshiya looked like he was at his wit's end. Reiichi wished he could explain to Yoshiya that these were the good tears, the tears that came from borrowed notes and other infinitesimal kindnesses that Fujishima couldn't handle, the tears that meant everything was going to be all right. But really, Yoshiya should be able to tell that by now—or if he couldn't, he was likely to get a lot of practice in the coming weeks. The thought made Reiichi smile, and he pressed his cheek into Fujishima's hair, watching fondly as Yoshiya collected the guardianship form and Fujishima's phone and stepped soundlessly out of the room, already scanning through the contacts for Shinomiya Keishi.

There were a few more mundane details to take care of—the call to the dean of students, informing him of a _Kashiwagi exception_ ; back-dating the new rules about guardianship into the handbook, and then subclausing the detail about rooming together so that there wouldn't be any trouble when and if Fujishima wanted to move out; and then they'd have to find a way to sneak Fujishima's things out of his current room without Kiyomine noticing, and wasn't that just going to be like crossing the bridge without waking the cantankerous troll. But even his cousin's wrath would be a small price to pay, in the end, to know Fujishima had a place to come home to. Nobody should have to feel that alone.

It wasn't until he'd disentangled himself from Fujishima some minutes later and sent the younger boy off to scrub his face that he noticed Yoshiya standing at the division between the kitchen and the living room, leaning into the wall with a pained expression. Reiichi blinked, worried for a second that something had gone wrong with the call to Shinomiya—then Yoshiya sighed, rubbing his neck as he stared after Fujishima's retreating form.

"If you really think cake for dinner will help…"

In the confusion of the stairs and everything that had come after, Reiichi had completely forgotten about the cake boxes he'd left on the counter. Fujishima crying again had been the last straw—Yoshiya was in crisis management mode now, willing to abandon nutrition and common sense and whatever else it took to repair the damage. If Reiichi didn't do something post haste, they'd all be eating themselves sick on Amaretto ice cream truffles. He stood up from the couch too fast but tried not to show it, crossing the room at a deliberately casual pace that still sent sparks up his spine. Reiichi smiled as he slid his arm through Yoshiya's and tugged him back toward the kitchen.

"Actually," he said, "I think you have just the thing."

Yoshiya had never looked so relieved. Little did he know the feeling was mutual.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight  
**

By the time Takara slipped into Okuno's bedroom for the night and slid the door closed behind him, he was feeling much lighter. His stomach was full of delicious miso udon—and the cup of warm milk Reiichi had pressed on him before bed, smiling in a way that made Takara think he was being teased, though he wasn't sure how—and the pounding in his head had mostly disappeared, a little tenderness on the back of his skull the only lasting side effect of his ordeal as a human bowling ball. Reiichi had been right, too, about what he'd leaned down to whisper in Takara's ear just before they all said their goodnights—Okuno-sempai did give really great hugs, and Takara felt a lot better for it, even if the embrace started with a sort of awkward pat to the sore spot on the top of his head. But it got better from there.

Takara leaned back against the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then letting it out with a smile. Helping Okuno cut vegetables for the udon, laughing at Reiichi who didn't want to be left out but couldn't stay interested long enough to complete any task Okuno gave him, and then listening to Okuno and Reiichi bicker about the ugly carrot slivers going into their bowls—it all made him smile so wide he had a hard time eating, could barely get the slippery udon noodles to stay in his mouth. Because Reiichi and Okuno felt like family—like family used to a long time ago, before his grandmother got sick and his dad was away so much and everything got so screwed up. All this time in the dorm, hanging out with Asou and Kuzumi and…and Kiyomine…he hadn't even realized how much he missed that feeling: like no matter what happened, he was definitely wanted somewhere, he definitely belonged somewhere. Takara pressed a hand over his chest, still sort of giddy at the idea of moving into Reiichi and Okuno's enormous corner suite. Reiichi had promised he could leave all the cleaning and household chores to Okuno, which Takara was _absolutely not_ going to do—but still, even if Reiichi was an absolute slob like people said, he was looking forward to sharing a room with somebody who helped out once in a while, not like that laundry obstructionist Kiyomine…Takara blinked his eyes open, a little surprised to find they didn't even sting. Somehow it was already easier to think Kiyomine's name, just knowing they wouldn't be roommates anymore.

The bedroom looked almost like he'd left it that morning, though someone—okay, Okuno—had snuck in at some point to make the bed and clean up the clothes he'd left cascading out of the rummaged drawers. The comforter he'd slept under the night before was folded up at the foot of the bed, right next to the enormous striped shirt that had hung off him like a jumbo flour sack, which Takara would be skipping tonight, having already decided to sleep in his crummy old T-shirt. It wasn't like he needed to conserve clothes anymore—not when all those shopping bags stacked up by the closet were for him. Takara pulled his shirt over his head and shook his hair out of his face, but he hesitated before he reached the zipper of his jeans, his fingers stalling over the weight in his pocket.

Caught up in the moment, arguing with Reiichi about the best movie that had come out that year, he'd barely noticed when Okuno slid his cell phone back to him across the breakfast bar and had forgotten it again just as fast, caught up in his zeal to defend the blockbuster that Reiichi considered _imitative and banal_. It felt a lot heavier in his palm now as he dug it out, stared down at the green alert light blinking relentlessly in the top left corner. He didn't remember hearing it ring. Out of some morbid sense of curiosity, he woke it up and scanned to his call log, wondering how many times Kiyomine had tried to call this time. Only four—not much, compared to that morning. Takara wasn't sure if the low number made him feel better or worse. Then all at once he froze, his eyes locked on the icon winking at the top of the screen.

Kiyomine had left a message.

For a long moment, Takara didn't move, didn't even breathe. He felt so cold he wondered if his heart had stopped beating, too. All the warmth he'd carried with him from the kitchen, the comfort of being surrounded by Reiichi and Okuno and the way their voices echoed under the high ceilings—it felt like the phone was sucking that all out of him, and he crossed his arms over his bare chest, trying to hold some of it in. Mechanically, he reached out and flicked off the light and then flopped heavily onto the bed, pulling the folded comforter tight against his stomach. He wasn't sure why he couldn't do this in the light. He wasn't sure he could do this at all. Suddenly the house felt big and empty, and he was alone in the dark, face to face with Kiyomine all over again. Takara bit his lip, pressed _play_ before he lost his nerve.

There was a slightly too long pause before the voice came on.

"Hey. Shorty."

It hadn't even been that long since they'd seen each other—a day? had it even really been a day?—but somehow, with that one stilted greeting it all hit him again, the ache of watching Kiyomine and Ayako embrace at the hospital, how painfully cold the snow had been on his skin as he turned his face up to the storm clouds, the reflection of the city lights staining them a dull red. He could hear the hesitation in Kiyomine's voice, the awkwardness of the other boy not knowing what he wanted to say—but Takara couldn't really blame him for that, because he wasn't even sure what he wanted to hear. He just wanted Kiyomine to have the right words, the words that would erase this rift between them as easily as if it really were just a line in the sand.

But then, when had Kiyomine ever had the right words?

"I guess you'll have to come back to our room Sunday, before school starts."

There was another pause, the rustle of a body shifting on the other side of the phone, and with that one tiny sound it was like Takara was right there in the room, could see Kiyomine sprawled out on the bed, his posture loose and careless like it always was when he was upset and trying not to show it. And there was a part of Takara, lying there alone in a bed too, squeezing Okuno's comforter as hard as he could against his chest, that wanted to end the message right there and just call him, hear his real voice coming through the phone—because that part of him wasn't mad at all, could tell even with this much distance between them that Kiyomine was so lonely, that Kiyomine had lain there with the phone pressed to his ear and all the lights on. For just a second, the rest of it almost didn't matter. But Kiyomine was still talking, his voice filling the void of this empty bedroom with a halting offer.

"I…I'll have a cake waiting for you. From your favorite place. Double fudge." And that was it—no signoff, no goodbye, just the beep that signaled the end of the message, and Takara alone in the dark, staring at the playback time blinking on the glowing screen. Forty-three seconds. He wondered how something could seem so short and so long at the same time.

Takara clenched his free hand into the folds of the comforter, and then for a second he was so angry and so lonely that the feeling burned in the back of his throat, sharp like vomit, because he recognized this for what it was: an invitation to forget it all, for everything to go back to exactly the way it had been—and didn't Kiyomine know that was what he wanted more than anything, to be able to just erase this, scratch it out of the story of the two of them as if it had never happened? But he couldn't even think that without remembering Kiyomine and Ayako in the hospital lobby all over again, the echo of those honest, indifferent words burning in his ears. _As long as you're all right, I don't care about anyone else_. And then all the anger left him as quickly as it had come, and he slumped back against the ridge of Okuno's pillows, bone tired and burnt out, and understanding for the first time exactly how thick that line he'd drawn between them was. It was supposed to be a line for Kiyomine, but now Takara was pretty sure he couldn't cross it himself either.

Because if he called Kiyomine right now, he knew exactly what would happen—whether he started angry, or indignant, or hurt, or just out of his mind sad-crazy-lonely like he felt right now, he'd hear that voice through the tinny speaker, and he'd just cave. Whatever he thought he wanted to say, he'd crumble in the face of Kiyomine, of the loneliness he could hear whispering through those forty-three seconds, and Takara knew himself well enough to know that he'd just end up burying all of this, carrying this line around inside him like a splinter that wouldn't heal. And that was the idea that scared him the most—because he had a feeling this line was something that had come to exist between him and Kouno and Nanase and Mutsumi, and it was the kind of line that turned into a chasm, until there was no bridging the distance anymore. If he went back to Kiyomine now, he was going to get lonelier and lonelier right there next to him, and in the end he wouldn't just lose Kiyomine—he'd lose all they'd ever had. And that thought was truly unbearable.

With a sharp breath that stuck in his lungs, Takara curled his knees in and pressed the phone to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the glow of the screen. It was tempting to try to run from this, like he'd been doing all day—but no, that was unbearable too, to be locked in this limbo with Kiyomine where neither of them could make a move. Kiyomine had to find a way across that line, or Takara did, or it was really over between them, and whatever happened, that had to be okay. Takara wiped a few tears away with the back of his wrist, but that was all he had; there was a coldness to this whole thing that just made him feel empty inside, like something had been carved out of him and all he had now was void. He typed out a text message before he could think about it too hard.

_Moving out for a while. Sorry._ His thumb hovered over the _send_ button, but in the end he couldn't stop himself from adding a few more words, his teeth digging into his bottom lip as he tapped the letters one by one. _Don't get too lonely_. As soon as he was sure it had sent, he turned the phone off—all the way off—watching it power down with his heart beating a little anxiously in his ears. He had no doubt that it was going to ring; he just didn't want to know how many times.

With a long sigh, feeling simultaneously heavy and hollowed out, Takara rolled onto his back, staring up at the black ceiling. It was done, and it was better this way, and he knew that; he just wished Okuno's room had a TV or a sound system or a white noise machine, anything except a digital clock ticking soundlessly on the nightstand, chasing those forty-three seconds around his head on endless repeat. He couldn't help thinking of the one night, after a fight with Kiyomine, when he'd run back to an empty house and not realized until too late just how daunting that emptiness was, fell asleep with the TV on so the silence didn't get into his head. It was hard not to feel that alone, lying there with the darkness pressing down on him. But he wasn't alone this time, Takara reminded himself, holding onto the thought like a lifeline. This time there were people in the guest room just down the hall, and the living room with the big couch where Reiichi had offered him a place to stay, and just beyond that was the kitchen where he'd sat kicking his feet, his hands wrapped around a big ceramic soup bowl, feeling that warmth all the way down in his bones…

Takara breathed in so sharply it was almost a gasp. Then he slid out of the cocoon of the comforter and pulled his shabby T-shirt haphazardly over his head, not caring if he'd gotten it backward in the dark. Tiptoeing into the guest room to curl up on the futon between Reiichi and Okuno seemed too weird, like he was a kid crawling in with his parents—but there was a kickass flatscreen TV in the living room, and Takara was extraordinarily gifted at figuring out other people's remotes. And if the digital clock was to be believed, it wasn't even ten yet, which meant he could catch a few more hours of the _Project Runway_ marathon they'd watched for a while after dinner. Nothing like bored judges mistaking idiocy for innovation to put him right to sleep. Takara draped the comforter like a cloak around his shoulders and headed for the door, careful not to let the hinges creak on his way out.

Whatever weight had settled on him, he left it on the nightstand with his silenced phone.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine  
**

The snow had started again. From the window in the guest room, Yoshiya traced the sweep of white flakes as they billowed against the glass and then settled silently over the front yard, luminescing where they caught the light of the streetlamp at the end of the drive. The roads had been clear all day, clear enough to gallivant around Daikanyama without worrying about the weather, but now he could see a thin crust of white accumulating on the asphalt, unbroken except where one set of tire tracks was riven into the new snow like a black seam, someone rushing home through the storm. The world seemed utterly silent beneath its fall. Yoshiya wiped the fog of his breath from the glass. If the snow kept up, it would be difficult to go much of anywhere tomorrow—but then, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, considering the day they'd had. Yoshiya pinched the bridge of his nose, lamenting the years taken off his life in the moment when Fujishima reeled backward at the top of the stairs and he'd felt his fingers close around thin air. Not that what had happened was in any way the younger boy's fault—still, Yoshiya was starting to wonder what it was about arguments and staircases that struck Fujishima as such a winning combination.

He had always considered himself a very mature, responsible, and generally considerate person—not someone liable to make his friends cry, or who would let his houseguest crack his head open at the bottom of the stairs. The events of the last twenty-four hours begged to differ. Yoshiya had no objection to Fujishima rooming with them for a while, but he did wonder how much of his self-image would be intact by the end of it.

He lost the thread of his musings as two pale arms wrapped around his stomach, the warmth of a soft cheek nuzzling into his shoulder. Yoshiya pressed his hand over those familiar knuckles.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, glancing back to meet enigmatic black eyes. Reiichi smiled, tipped his head up to rest his chin in the dip of Yoshiya's shoulder.

"Fujishima got a hug. I'm just balancing the scales. Or were you planning to play favorites?" he teased, his loose embrace tightening into a squeeze.

If there was any favoritism at work in this house, Reiichi was certainly on the winning side. Yoshiya chose not to say that, though he did raise an eyebrow as he traced one hand along Reiichi's arm, his fingers hesitating on the sleeve of the cream cashmere sweater he had changed into after his shower. "You're not planning to sleep in this, are you?" he asked, aghast at the mere thought of trying to fall asleep next to someone in a seven-hundred-dollar sweater.

Reiichi laughed against his neck. "Of course not. Have you ever tried to sleep in cashmere? It's suffocating. I need to borrow something of yours again. You must have enough tedious blue-striped ensembles to go around."

Subjective tediousness aside, he did have almost an entire drawer full of nightshirts, all of them variations on the blue stripe design—but that drawer was in his dresser, and the dresser was in the bedroom they'd just sent Fujishima off to a scant few minutes before, and Yoshiya couldn't imagine how he would dredge up the courage to push open that door. The younger boy had seemed better after dinner, much better after a few hours curled up on the couch in front of something called _Project Runway_ , while he and Reiichi traded commentary about silhouette lines and color palettes that Yoshiya couldn't have followed any less if they'd been speaking Akkadian. Nevertheless, if the day had taught him anything, it was not to underestimate the gale force with which Fujishima's mood could shift; besides which, he had this (maybe irrational) fear that he was the source of the problem in some way he didn't understand, and that the next time he was alone with Fujishima, it was going to be the CocoaBella meltdown all over again. He wasn't risking all that for a shirt.

Yoshiya swallowed a sigh, more for his crumbling reputation in his own mind than for Reiichi's request. "Here," he said, slipping out of the other boy's hold and retrieving the nightshirt he'd intended to wear himself, folded on the small desk in the corner. "I'll grab the one from last night out of the laundry."

Reiichi waved a dismissive hand. "Why bother? Just sleep without one—I don't mind."

Though he admittedly had no experience with either, Yoshiya had a feeling that sleeping shirtless would be just as impossible as sleeping next to someone in cashmere—especially if that someone was Reiichi, who liked to fall asleep curled up on his chest, wrapped so thoroughly around him that they barely used half the futon. Already Yoshiya woke sometimes in the night and found it impossible to drift off again, preoccupied by the way Reiichi's lips parted when he sighed in his sleep, the unconscious flicker of his eyelashes dark against his cheeks, the feather-light pressure of those long fingers wound into the folds of his shirt. He couldn't imagine how enthralled he would be skin to skin. A train of thought he carefully derailed as Reiichi reached for the hem of his sweater.

"I think we'll both be more comfortable if—" Then Reiichi pulled the sweater over his head, and Yoshiya forgot what he was saying completely, sucking in a horrified breath. "Oh, Reiichi."

Pale as he was, Reiichi had always bruised easily—it was one of those things that made Yoshiya's pulse catch sometimes, the way the world left its mark on him, even the shallowest wounds all too likely to scar. But this was far and away the worst he'd ever seen it. If he hadn't been standing at the top of the stairs, watching the gut-wrenching collision on the landing, he wouldn't have believed Reiichi had been beaten by a baluster and not a baseball bat. The mottled blue and dark brown bruises stretched from his waist all the way up the middle of his back, and there was a distinctly darker patch in the center of his spine where he'd clearly hit the carved finial. It looked as if the railing had nearly snapped him in half. Yoshiya felt something clench in his chest, stricken all over again that he hadn't caught Fujishima at the top of the stairs.

Either it looked worse than it felt or Reiichi was already used to it; he just blinked at Yoshiya over his shoulder, tossing his expensive sweater carelessly onto the desk. "Hmm? What is it?"

Yoshiya shook his head. "Nothing. Just…I think someone could extrapolate the shape of my banister just by looking at you." He reached out and ran the backs of his fingers softly down Reiichi's spine, wondering at the shiver that followed his touch. "You bruise like an old banana."

He hadn't meant anything in particular by it—but apparently he'd said something unforgivable, because Reiichi's eyes widened and he jerked around to face Yoshiya with a deeply offended look, his mouth open in surprise. "I do not! An old banana…what a vulgar comparison. Honestly, Yoshiya."

Yoshiya raised an eyebrow, carefully suppressing his smile. "What should I have said?"

Reiichi huffed, turning his head away as he vehemently shook the folds out of his nightshirt. "Anything else. A delicate flower, a porcelain doll…any simile of your choice that doesn't hang on an association with overripe fruit!"

"Of course. My mistake," Yoshiya replied, though he wasn't especially sorry. It wasn't in his nature to tease Reiichi that often, but he couldn't deny how endearing he found it when the great Kashiwagi Reiichi lost a little of that celebrated composure, undeniably pouting now as he slipped his arms through the over-long sleeves of his borrowed shirt, just flustered enough to mix up the buttons. Yoshiya reached out and caught his agitated hands. "The vulnerability of beautiful things," he said gently, paraphrasing a little, undoing the buttons one by one and pushing them through the correct holes. Reiichi just sulked, apparently not soothed by him or Simone Weil.

"You and your maladroit tongue," he mumbled, absently watching Yoshiya's fingers ascend to the next button. "You'd better work on that before Fujishima moves in with us. He's very sensitive about things like that."

Yoshiya was fairly sure Reiichi was the only one sensitive about metaphors as well-worn as an old banana—but all the same he paused, brushed the flat of his thumb over the second-to-last button as he caught his companion's eyes. "Are you sure you know what you're getting into?" he asked, softly so Reiichi would know he was serious. "Agreeing to be his guardian…it's a big responsibility."

"And presiding over the dorm isn't?" Reiichi replied.

Yoshiya shook his head, moved up to the last button. "Of course it is. But this is…much more personal." His fingers faltered for a moment over the smooth plastic rim, the cross of white thread catching against the pad of his thumb as he remembered again Fujishima sobbing into his hands in the snow, the anguish on his face as he stood in the second-floor hallway with his phone pressed to his ear, telling himself one more time that he didn't matter. There was a desperation in that, an ache that Yoshiya didn't trust himself to know how to heal. But maybe Reiichi did. It was Reiichi who had known exactly what Fujishima needed, after all—a safe haven, someone to run to. It was Reiichi who had made him smile again, standing at the cutting board sculpting the udon carrots into abysmal florets. Reiichi that Fujishima had leaned into on the couch, the two of them bathed in the blue glow of the television while Yoshiya took the armchair and listened distantly to them speaking in tongues. Reiichi who had finished the last button for him and reached up to prod the tip of his nose, amused.

"You worry far too much," Reiichi told him, and Yoshiya smiled, smoothing the leaves of the shirt collar down against his shoulders.

"Maybe," he replied, his affect flat. "I'd just hate to see Fujishima fall by the wayside like that turtle you found when you were in middle school, or the cactus you illegally transported into the country, or the seven goldfish you won at the festival last summer because Tsukasa won four…"

Reiichi rolled his eyes. "It's a human life, Yoshiya. I'll focus." But he was laughing a little, and Yoshiya laughed too, his traitorous thumb straying over the soft skin of Reiichi's throat.

Most of the time that mattered in his life was time he had spent with Reiichi, and while he considered himself on good terms with Sawa and Akira, neither of them had ever needed very much from him, self-sufficient and put together from a very young age—but he wondered if the feeling he had around Fujishima was the same way other people felt about their younger siblings, this desire to be relied on, to be friend and family to someone at the same time. He almost mentioned it to Reiichi, but saw the futility in that before he spoke a word. Tsukasa had the least reliable older brother imaginable—and come to think of it, it was Tsukasa who'd gotten stuck with the turtle and the cactus, and even the cats Reiichi and Fujishima had conspired to inflict on the Kashiwagis…

Somehow, that wasn't reassuring.

He felt more than heard Reiichi sigh, blinked his thoughts away to find a pensive expression had stolen across the other boy's face, his eyes locked on something across the room. It took Yoshiya a moment to understand what he was looking at—the second drawer down in the small desk, where Yoshiya had tucked the change of guardianship form until it could go to Shinomiya Keishi by courier first thing in the morning. Reiichi glanced up at him with a tentative smile.

"To a good home, huh?" he said softly. Yoshiya slid his hand up to trace the slope of Reiichi's cheek, not at all sure how to answer.

He was spared saying anything by a sound in the hall, the low creak of a floorboard that turned both of their heads toward the door. Yoshiya strained to hear any clarifying sounds, the flick of the light switch in the bathroom or the rasp of their own doorknob, maybe, if Fujishima needed something, but all he heard was the patter of hushed footsteps disappearing in the direction of the living room. He shared a quizzical look with Reiichi.

"What could our little foster kitten be up to now, do you suppose?" Reiichi murmured with a bemused smile. Yoshiya shook his head. Then he moved to the door, Reiichi trailing silently after him.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find at the end of the hall—but somehow, it wasn't Fujishima clearly preparing to camp out on the living room couch, wrapped in the thick checkered comforter from the bedroom and surrounded by his mother's legions of throw pillows. The television was on, the flickers of changing light broken across his face, and above the murmur of montage music Yoshiya caught the crackle of disposable foil, Fujishima's eyes locked on the screen as he dug into a snack box on his lap. Yoshiya stepped into the room and Fujishima jerked his head around to gape at him, a handful of Hello Panda frozen on the way to his mouth.

"Fujishima…" Yoshiya started, not sure what he was asking.

Fujishima squirmed to sit up straighter on the couch, accidentally kicking one of the throw pillows across the room. "Okuno-sempai! Sorry—I was just, uh…I wasn't really sleeping and…"

Yoshiya just stared, at a loss for what to say. He had a sense it wasn't just insomnia and chocolate pandas that had brought Fujishima out of the bedroom, wanted to ask what was wrong, if there was anything he could do—but what if Fujishima had come out here to put something out of his head, and digging it up was the road to upsetting him again? Once again Yoshiya found himself completely out of his element, fumbling for words and feeling awkwardly as if he were trying to manipulate chess pieces with oven mitts on. Fortunately for both of them, the Grand Master had followed him from the guest room; Reiichi stepped out of the hall and bopped him on the shoulder with the back of his fist, clicking his tongue in reproach.

"You've been remiss, Yoshiya. Neglecting to offer your guest any other sleeping arrangements—really. This is what happens when you're out of practice hosting."

Yoshiya was very familiar by now with the difference between when he was actually being scolded and when Reiichi was scolding him as a means of smoothing things over, a little performance to get around whatever was actually going on. Fujishima struggled to free himself from the pit of the couch, looking a little chagrined.

"No, it's not really—the bedroom is—"

"I know," Reiichi interrupted, flopping down on the couch next to Fujishima and tossing a pillow extravagantly out of his way. "His room is exceptionally boring. A flaw he refuses to address. I would have escaped, too." His eyes found Yoshiya's again, and in the stark light of the television they seemed even brighter than usual, dancing with the secret of the charade. "Yoshiya, go grab the extra futons out of the closet. This calls for a sleepover!" Then, pulling Fujishima close: "Don't tell me that woman who made the hideous fringe blouson is still in."

"You wouldn't believe what she won with last round," Fujishima replied, all his embarrassment successfully allayed. Yoshiya shook his head and left them to it, feeling his way toward the linen closet with one hand on the wall.

He wasn't foolish enough to think this was over, that Fujishima's troubles with his father and Hosaka and whatever other specters had chased him out of the bedroom could be banished by one night sprawled across the couch ridiculing trite, dramatic television. But as he wrestled the spare futons out of the closet and listened to the giggling from down the hall, he had the sense all the same that things were going to be all right from here—whatever it took, whatever Fujishima needed, Yoshiya couldn't imagine there was any wound that time and sleepovers and shopping, and karaoke and special-order sushi and high-stakes games of Memory and Go Fish, and Reiichi and parasailing chocolate pandas together could not heal. For now, it was just good to hear Fujishima laughing—to hear both of them laughing—even if what they were laughing about was lobbing Hello Panda into each other's mouths and the black-and-white tennis savant that had escaped down Reiichi's shirt.

They had so much more than one night, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end of the story - in fact, it's really just the beginning, especially for Takara and Kiyomine - but it's all I've written for now. I wanted to post what I had all at once, even though it may be a few weeks now before I have another chapter to post, and updates are likely to be somewhat slower from here on out. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, and hopefully I'll have more soon.


	10. Author's Note: Update

**Author's Note:**

I just wanted to put out a note to everyone who's been reading this story and let you know that I've finally begun posting the sequel, Takara and Kiyomine's story: "Break Even." There will probably be one more story after this, for Reiichi and Yoshiya, but in the meantime, be on the lookout for sporadic updates.  I really appreciate all the reviews and notes of encouragement I've received so far.  Thanks.


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